My imagination and capacity to suspend disbelief are insufficient, by far, to believe that Donald Trump knows what Hawley-Smoot is. More likely some loathsome little maggot on his staff has heard of it and is wrong about 50% of what they think about it. - ThreadSky

kenwhite.bsky.social • 264 days ago

My imagination and capacity to suspend disbelief are insufficient, by far, to believe that Donald Trump knows what Hawley-Smoot is.

More likely some loathsome little maggot on his staff has heard of it and is wrong about 50% of what they think about it.

Comments

sailorsdelight.bsky.social•264 days ago

I don’t know who Hawley Smoot is but I know Putney Swope

drosgood.bsky.social•264 days ago

This reminds me about the time I was dared to write a Smoot-Hawley song in the manner of Johnny Horton.

“In Nineteen Hundred Twenty-Nine we had us quite a shock
The Dow Jones Average plummeted, and took with it our stock
Our farming boys could not compete with cheap imported food...

drosgood.bsky.social•264 days ago

We have to save our markets Smoot and Hawley did conclude...

drosgood.bsky.social•264 days ago

Well they gathered up in Washington and they wrote themselves a list
Of agricultural imports that they thought should not exist
Then they sent it to the President, and he signed it into fact
The salvation of our farmin' boys, the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act.

drosgood.bsky.social•264 days ago

I don't remember being sober when I done it. :/

drjamesjteeth.bsky.social•264 days ago

One of Trump’s goons probably heard Smoot and was running abound the office saying “Smoot” repeatedly like Gir.

hrtraulsen.bsky.social•264 days ago

ferris bueller tho

thegreatgonzo.uk•264 days ago

To be fair how can anyone remember anything that nobody has created a tortured anacronym for?

subpoenis.bsky.social•264 days ago

For fuck's sake! Everyone knows it did not work, and America sank deeper into the Great Depression

impliedoralconsent.com•264 days ago

I missed that day in class, I guess.

nickcharles.bsky.social•264 days ago

The only thing they know is it was mentioned in Ferris Bueller.

shoutingboy.bsky.social•264 days ago

I remember “Hawley Smoot!” was a magic spell in BORED OF THE RINGS

olliemcclellan.bsky.social•264 days ago

Ben Stein?

shuadc.bsky.social•264 days ago

Honestly everything I know about it is from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and yet that’s more than enough to know it was bad

athornton.bsky.social•264 days ago

Hawley is the Running Man and a Smoot is the unit of measure for that bridge across the Charles at MIT, right?

joehaydu.bsky.social•264 days ago

My administration will have the best Harley-Smoots ever. You won’t believe how bigly they are. My uncle from MIT, you know you can’t believe how smart my brain is, MIT you know. Strong men, with tears in their eyes saying “Sir, sir, your Harley’s are so magnificent”, they want me to…..

jeffbell408.bsky.social•264 days ago

The funny thing is that Oliver Smoot, the guy who was used to measure the bridge, went on to lead the ANSI and then ISO.

rayleighscatter.bsky.social•264 days ago

Team trump reads legal documents for the content that a below average idiot would extract and not for the limits of its grants/restrictions or the stated non-applicable cases.

cormacaroni.bsky.social•264 days ago

the dude who just donated 50 million to the cause probably mentioned it, and b/c Trump thinks giving him money is the smartest thing a human can do, he attributes wisdom to whatever economic guff fell out of the dude's mouth at the event

e2138.bsky.social•264 days ago

i know that a Smoot is a unit of linear measure approx. 5 feet used to determine the length of a bridge in Boston/Cambridge... but what's a Hawley?

300ps.bsky.social•264 days ago

I mean if he wants to emulate McKinley, we know how that ends.

scribblegurl.bsky.social•264 days ago

Anyone who thinks replacing income tax with a tariff on imported goods is a reasonable or intelligent thing to do needs a good swift kick to the junk and to be unemployed forever.

stealthisbook.bsky.social•264 days ago

I'm pretty sure some crank advisor must've repeatedly gone off on tariffs, the name sounded funny and so got stuck in his brain. The surprise is he got the context mostly right instead of randomly mumbling 'Smoot' over and over

leastactionhero.bsky.social•264 days ago

ok but what if he knows about the hoot-smalley tarriff?

cromdeluise.bsky.social•264 days ago

Smalley Hoot

davidjorgonson.bsky.social•264 days ago

Yes, that post was spelled correctly. Not typed by Trump.

skilleahy.bsky.social•264 days ago

I have an article about how tariffs on Chinese hand embroidered handkerchiefs were used to preserve the American empire in Puerto Rico. Some day I will submit. Boy is tariff law dense.

midnightplat.bsky.social•264 days ago

Wait, this uses that bridge that takes Mass Ave across the Charles between Boston and Cambridge, some MIT kid measured it with his body because nothing says "didn't read the assignment" more than making an instrument out of yourself. 1/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot

smpa.bsky.social•264 days ago

That kid is apparently a distant relative of the Smoot of Smoot-Hawley infamy, and also past president of International Organization for Standardization!

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/16/us/washington-talk-not-smitten-with-smoot.html

midnightplat.bsky.social•264 days ago

I did not know that, but of course he is/was. Of course back in his day the tariff to get your keg out the Allston packety was probably a cool fin, not a Jackson. But glad the family line loosened up a little.

midnightplat.bsky.social•264 days ago

Anyway, when you bring beer across the Charles, the "tariff" you pay to the packey to accept your idea is called a Hawley Smoot Tariff, because hawley smoot if you pull that off in Allston.

dbressler.bsky.social•264 days ago

I need a parody legal filing that relies "upon imagination and capacity to suspend disbelief."

andycraig.bsky.social•264 days ago

His idiotic anti-trade pro-tariffs view is one of his very few genuinely longstanding political beliefs, back to the 80s at least. I’m sure he didn’t come up with the historical reference but I think it’s much closer to being an actual sincere belief than he has on just about any other policy issue.

strtrklvr.bsky.social•264 days ago

Okay it’s about tariffs. So that’s bad?

scribblegurl.bsky.social•264 days ago

Oh, only if you don't want to be able to buy anything anymore, ever, and don't care if the US economy goes down in a huge fireball of death while we all die in the fiery, fiery flames.

That might be a slight exaggeration. But only slight.

strtrklvr.bsky.social•264 days ago

Well it’s good to know someone smarter than me has it figured out & will fix it

scribblegurl.bsky.social•263 days ago

Trump isn't talking about normal tariffs, he wants to replace the federal income tax with tariffs on all imported goods. Which would be disastrous for the economy and American consumers. Tariffs exist to keep foreign companies from having unfair advantage, not to pay our bills.

strtrklvr.bsky.social•264 days ago

GenocideJoe is going to put tariff on Chinese EV cars. So that’s going to crash US economy?

nixonyx.bsky.social•264 days ago

Tariffs on EVs is a bad idea. Tariffs on literally everything is an even worse idea. (Also, just because someone disagrees with Trump doesn't mean they agree with Biden. There are more than 2 possible positions on almost every issue.)

strtrklvr.bsky.social•264 days ago

I know that! What I want to know is WHY are tariffs such a bad idea?

nixonyx.bsky.social•264 days ago

Short summary: Not all parts and resources can be sourced locally & those prices go up. It takes time and massive investment to build nonexistent local manufacturing to avoid import so things grind to a halt/cost more. Corps just pass tariffs on to customers. Everything gets *very* expensive.

scribblegurl.bsky.social•263 days ago

Ma'am, read my post again. REPLACING INCOME TAX WITH TARIFFS IS A FUCKING IDIOTIC IDEA.

strtrklvr.bsky.social•263 days ago

I must not have read it. I only saw the statement that tariffs are bad with no rationale

scribblegurl.bsky.social•263 days ago

My bad. I made the mistake of assuming you knew why Trump was suddenly in love with tariffs and Smoot-Hawley. The error was mine and i apologize.

cfk1.bsky.social•264 days ago

Isn't that the past tense of the senior Senator from Missouri attempting to smite someone?

electricjelly.bsky.social•264 days ago

I thought it was one of those painfully awkward not-quite-smooches that make you look like a Ron Howard Who that Josh and his missus share on occasion

midnightplat.bsky.social•264 days ago

Naw, he may have the pomposity you'd associate with a Paladin, but he always does Ranger/Rogue DEX builds to maximize running away, I mean mobility.

differentmatt.bsky.social•264 days ago

I use it in my college lectures as an example of a fairly minor thing that's been elevated to CRITICAL FACT over a century of HS textbooks written by guys who make Smoot look like a hippie.

I could believe young Donnie had it beat into him at military school, and burped it up in a dementia reverie.

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