So much is happening so fast these days, by the time it becomes news it is no longer news. That’s probably not news to you. As is not that before one trade war even takes to the battlefield, another one or two begins. Like the world wars were. Tariff’s go down, we’re up, when they go up, we’re down.
Talking to, say, three or four different people at as many different venues, in the quagmire course of a similar number of hours, can change your whole perspective — until what they told you switches up again because of need and gained knowledge.
So, what I am about to say, going to the past to some past columns, is not to eat crow as much as it is to count the crows in differing and ever-changing ways.
— But first, what are your top Tariff Adjusting Ramifications (TAR). Here are mine. Barbie’s still come out of China? Often touted. But now far from top-grade. Not like models. With big feet and thick legs, and busts that are small without being at all perky. Wearing only that one dress that still cuts muster, so forget dressing and redressing her. And they are not coming surrounded by a beach setting, but maybe a coffin? Morbid, but as we merge in a taste of the American, which is required these days, some slasher Hollywood?
Then, heard on that marketplace of ideas that is the Internet, that the 25 percent tariff imposed by Canada includes that one mega-highway that connects the continental USA and Alaska — through THEIR country. So everything from food to meds arriving by truck that Alaskans need becomes out of reach, since I don’t think the annual salary up in them thar woods is that high. How to make it work? Cut a deal with a Mountie? But wait their motto is to defend what’s right. Not left. Ouch! But now invoke their sub-motto, every Mountie gets their man, to bring in some Hollywood fictionalized fact. So you know they are going to find a way to find you, and seal the deal, but it might take longer because they can’t so much anymore get better horses from all those Hoidy Toidy farms in The States.
And I’m not even going to mention that highway running south from The Border, in a reversal, of fortune, through Mexico. —
Start with man No. 1, who had a lot to say on a lot of different topics related to Our Times, as he topped off a tap in a tavern. Ten minutes into our conversation, he said a few things that really hit home. As far as territory. And yes we are talking all about tariffs, which didn’t concern him as much as certain other things, and that’s where I would have considered taking issue with him. Until I heard what he had to say, as he runs his own business out of a Prescott-operated store, a smallish town, and was touting the ways where you need to look after the local community, not as much the global community and how to deal with it, isolationism aside. It has been said, and rightly so, that if the ways we are essentially taxing the goods that come into our country adds local jobs and as such brings local growth, great. And I have an issue with hardcore, my way or the highway negotiating tactics, but they seem to be working to bring people from other countries to the table to talk, and the price of groceries on our tables has not yet taken off. Seems you don’t really need to buy that suddenly pricy avocado and make guacamole, opt for locally-sourced and dairy-based sour cream instead and add some cheese to your Mexican food too, and make it cheddar. There definitely have been trade balance inequities with some of those countries — so much to say on that — but for now just add that it’s amazing it took so long for it to garner attention. Maybe pay less attention to the taste and its nature of your garnish, and more where it comes from.
But back to man No. 1 and his business, and others like, or unlike it. He noted that some of the cheap-price Big Box stores in his neighborhood don’t do much for local causes, where local places of business do, and even remarked that those across the state line in Hastings are even more culprits. Moreover, he has had trouble getting employees for his shop, and I’m not sure which side of the coin he was on involving this, but he noted that he would be willing to pay $20 an hour and at the same time help someone learn a trade, where basic clerking will get you $17 and they have a relatively abundant supply of labor. He tied in the need, and ability to make it available and affordable, to go to something like a tech school and acquire needed know-how for ongoing success more quickly. The degree of loyalty to clients extended to his willingness to travel more than an hour to do a job, and build a network of … clients. He then left some of his beer behind and went to the bathroom, then left the building.
Next, man No. 2 had a far different take, a reversal of the previous guarded acclaim for the direction things are going. The stock market volatility is a problem for people whose pensions depend on it, but I agree with him that if you have enough money to simply play the market, you should maybe just get a day job. So neither one of us were extending a lot of sympathy for such people if wealthy who live or die, and it seems like a stressful hobby, if that’s what it is, on every buck more or less they make … and take all the time to watch it that carefully. He has a pension account that went crazily up and down at times, but never took much stock of the matter, although he did lament the lack of high-paying wages in his salary history, so he has a cheap beer wallet, unlike the rates made by some workers. He moved parts around in a warehouse for less than $20 an hour, so as far as pity for those who now get $45 … The problem as a commonality with society, we agreed, is greed.
Now to No. 3. There was an old man sitting next to me, left side, making love to the tonic and beer he would eventually knock over. He was wearing a Menards shirt and a stocking hat and sunglasses and said to a much younger man, I don’t want to give you advice but …
Then he came up with those words of wisdom. He told him. Make money when you’re young. Save it for when you’re old.
Right side was more of a bar conversation, swinging from carbon fibers, to bats in the barfly belfry, and mice in the cupboard too, that are more scared of you. But a very real working class camaraderie. And a last take: “I am not as scared of that … as I am of tariffs.” He soon would go back to the sacred, ordering another beer.
But I will end with a quick set up quips that were the most real of the bunch.
Two harried workers met at the counter, right next to the cash register, and the server posed a question about what a customer wanted, a really cool form of cole slaw with a funny name. I of course chimed in. Little slices of carrots, (push the limit with their size, to use them up?) A bit of both types of cabbage. I told her she had it sacked, as in a need to make every bunch of broccoli count, to save money in this economy and world. (Even something very small diced from your batch of tomatoes, if tariffs allow?)
Then the kicker: The sauce is what makes it all work, if their kitchen. And mine too. It should be the sweet and sour kind, and we again, concurred, with just a bit more sour than the other flavor. So think 60/40. But not 70/30. Unless there are those few drops left.
Now in our wonderful life, that’s a real world conversation..