The "leprechaun" framing captures something essential: the real story isn't the headline tariff rate but the cumulative distortions beneath it.
But the most perilous effect isn't what has already happened — it's what has been taken away: policy flexibility.
We've moved from a broad, uneven trail where mistakes could be corrected to a tightrope where even small errors have outsized consequences. Tariffs, fiscal expansion, and political pressure on the Fed don't guarantee collapse; they guarantee vanishing margin for error.
The Fed can't easily stimulate without reigniting inflation. Congress can't spend without deepening deficits. Immigration restrictions keep labor supply tight just when flexibility is most needed.
A single shock — geopolitical flare-up, energy price spike, investment pullback, or policy delay — could now destabilize what would have been manageable before.
The "leprechaun" tariffs might not sink the economy directly, but they're building a world where policy becomes brittle. The danger isn't the wobble; it's that one strong draft could tip the balance — and the rope has become too narrow for recovery.
I can think of few things where this administration has done what well informed, rational people would do. They are not only a band of incompetents, but incompetents who almost always choose the wrong option. They could do better by just using random selection of options.
They are getting credit for the Israeli Hamas agreement, but it is mostly Tony Blair's doing. They merely adopted his plans and even got him to represent them in negotiations.
Their choices (which they think are in their interest) are backfiring almost every time. You'd think that they would have noticed by now, unless that's the intent.
It’s disappointing to see many large, successful companies act as poor corporate citizens. Apple, for example, has benefited enormously from America’s laws, infrastructure, and past public investments in technology, yet it claims Ireland as its home base to avoid paying U.S. taxes. They take from the system that enabled their success but give little back. If a person behaved that way, constantly taking without reciprocating, you’d eventually stop associating with them.
Large corporations are amoral swine. The Citizens United decision claiming that corporations were people was ludicrous and will probably be the end of the US. If Apple claims that it's making it's profits in Ireland, then force Apple to argue all it's patent and trademark infringement cases there, and make Ireland enforce them.
I would be disappointed if a company that I invested money in didn’t do everything they legally could to reduce costs. Including avoiding government taxes, ensuring full reimbursements of taxes such as VAT, avoiding tariffs and fees, optimizing transfer pricing, operating under the best business structure that would reduce costs, allow carry forward losses etc etc etc
If it is legal I want them to do it.
Having worked in international business, my experience is I am hardly alone in this expectation. Don’t do it and you are gifting an advantage to all your competitors.
I understand where you are coming from but this is the ethos that some feel is a huge problem. Bottom line over everything else, shareholder value over everything else. Shouldn't there be ethics in business other than the black and white of what is legal and not legal? Do businesses have any responsibility at all to the communities they serve? The environment they impact? The people that work for them?
I moslty agree. After much thought about this, I think the only realistic and effective ways of dealing with this moral conundrum is to lobby government to tighten laws, (eg kangaroo leather in California) shame/black ban/boycott companies into doing the right thing (eg Nike and sweat shops) and maybe donate your Apple dividends/capital gains (you almost certainly have some in your 401k) to a charity of your choice … and here’s the kicker … don’t forget to take the tax write off. Unfortunately it all kind of all comes back to money.
And don’t think selling your shares in a company that you find morally repugnant is going to help. You actually hold more power with nominal ownership as an activist shareholder.
Their responsibility is to follow the laws and regulations and pay the taxes that are due. It's up to government to look out for us. Private companies look out for their owners, and that's fine, as long as government reigns them in.
Expecting them to "do the right thing" gets into a very murky philosophical area. Just how much I'd supposed to be enough? How much above the required amount they currently pay should Apple decide to voluntarily overpay in taxes?
On the other hand it doesn't seem right to tax a company on their foreign revenues when our citizens are not buying product.
It would be like you living in one state and another state decides they should have the legal right to tax you. Based on what?
A bigger issue is that companies outsource production to avoid American labor costs, OSHA standards and so on and then import the finished product back into the USA. Voila and then they have larger profit margins.
I noted several years ago that several of the largest multi-national companies had the largest groups of tax lawyers in the country. They did not put these groups together to manage the payment of taxes. The role of these large groups was to find mechanisms for tax avoidance and to lobby for rule changes that could be exploited. Multinational organizations offer great opportunities to use accounting systems and other mechanisms to put income or profits into countries with low tax rates.
I reached the conclusion a number of years ago when I was reviewing the financial arrangements of two silicon valley giants that we needed to modify how taxes were assessed. For instance, for the US to get its fair share of the tax from the incomes that these companies generate from US sales there needs to a minimum tax that is related to sales. For instance, if the company generates 40% of its profits through the sale of consumer products in the US and its profit margin on the products it sells in the US is high, then there should be a minimum tax assessed on US sales. Such a system would be an alternative minimum tax computed upon the sales in the US and what percentage of those sales are related to total income and not solely the income tax the company computes using its various schemes to place the bulk of its income in tax havens.
The US Government aggressively challenges any attempt by other countries to tax US multinational corporations fairly on the profits actually made in those countries but by various means, mostly transfer pricing and exorbitant “licensing fees” are moved to low tax countries like Ireland.
It came to me this morning that Trump's destruction of the economy and of much of US scientific and medical research capability may lead to his rapid downfall. Hitler and Mussolini both assumed control of their countries when the countries were in extremely dire financial circumstances, and at least temporarily improved the living conditions of the Italian and German populations.
Trump assumed control of the US when its economy was the envy of the world and is instituting a series of really stupid policies that will eventually cause great economic hardship and pain for the American people. The disruption may be temporarily masked, but the chickens will come home to roost. Much of the population of the US seems to be willing to sit on their hands while the law and the Constitution are trampled on, but if Trump causes a serious recession or depression, the fury of the a population deprived of luxuries they believe they are entitled to will be very hard for him to spin or control.
I would like to read more about the actual impact of the Great AI Investment. It seems to me that it should have very little impact elsewhere in the economy (beyond driving energy prices) because it's essentially billionaires and corporations sloshing money back and forth between them, with comparatively little of that money splashing out into the rest of the economy.
I admittedly don't know a lot about this but one impact is the huge construction projects for the data centers. Think Amazon-sized warehouses full of electronics. Building these facilities involves architects/engineers/construction workers, materials for construction that help companies that sell material, all the many electronic components of these huge servers which are all produced by someone and shipped/transported by someone else, plus all the workers who install and then maintain these physical components. I still don't think that explains how this is propping up the stock market but it's one thing people don't always think about when they hear "AI Investment".
As an ordinary retail shopper, I observed another factor which has delayed consumer price increases (inflation): Stores like Marshalls, Ross, Costco seem to be hugely overstocked revealing that they (and many other retailers) made pre-tariff massive purchases (even more than usual before the holiday season) and are delaying the need to raise final prices. I expect by Jan this hedge will run its course.
The tariffs are one more example of Trump promising that ‘free lunch’ of rhetorical junk food to his idiotic followers… just like Mexico building the wall and paying for it too, ‘concepts of a plan’ for better healthcare and (like magic) no more global warming problems to worry about.
We need to be very careful (and skeptical) of reported inflation numbers like the CPI when assessing the damage from tariffs and Trump economic policy. The CPI is heavily weighted to housing and puts much less weight on health care, insurance and basic food items which have (and will) spike and are of primary importance on a daily basis.
I know Paul you are not a fan of the Irish economy- and you like the see the entire Irish economy through the prism solely of tax policy and avoidance- but maybe give the hackneyed leprechaun stage Oirish language a rest (or at least as respectful retirement). Its crude and arguably offensive, whether intended or not. Maybe even Trumpian one could suggest. a loyal subscriber, in yes Ireland.
Ireland walked itself into this situation by cute hoordom and corruption related to Revenue. Dutch sandwiches and the like that l believe were allowed because of politicans related to Governement lobbying Revenue Commissioners illegally/unconstitutionally. We deserve this sort of comment.
Krugman’s “leprechaun economics” is not harmless wit. It sits in the same racist lineage as the 19th century Punch cartoons that drew the Irish as ape-faced drunks with shillelaghs. The leprechaun was just another way of saying the Irish are childish-dishonest-unserious.
Imagine if a Nobel laureate casually coined “Sambo economics” or “Chink economics.” The outrage would be immediate, the career damage permanent. Yet somehow calling the Irish leprechauns is treated as a bit of fun. It is not. It is the recycling of old anti-Irish racism dressed up as analysis.
What happened in 2015 was not a fairy tale. It was Apple and other US corporations gaming the tax code. To turn that into a joke about leprechauns is lazy-ignorant-insulting.
The Irish deserve better than this. Krugman should issue a public apology and retire the phrase permanently. Until then he is a gobshite playing with racist tropes.
We Americans have great respect for Irish culture in general and leprechauns in particular. My wife makes me watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People at least once a year.
There's also the fact that roughly 20% of us are of Irish descent, and are fiercely proud of it. Even if our grasp of Irish history and culture is not as refined as that of our EU counterparts.
Have a watch of The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara from 1952, if you haven’t already. A classic of the genre. And no we're not in the least bit concerned about people having a laugh about leprechauns.
It’s easy usage may also be flagging a dark current truth. That for all the political rhetoric of Dublin’s internationalism the global billionaire ruling class remains an Anglo-American perfidious hegemon. As long as Ireland remains conveniently broken in two by partition nothing will socially change.
When did he call the Irish leprechauns? He’s asserting the economic gains were illusory and not real… like Leprechauns. Maybe you disagree with his point but seems like a reasonable editorial choice - interweaving a cultural trope (perhaps overused) with his main point. If it were about Texas he could have called it ‘Cowboy Economics’
I didn’t read the original article where Leprechauns came up…so maybe you have a point, maybe not, but my impression is that you are going way out of your way to be outraged.
No less a person than the Irish Ambassador of the US was also outraged.
He wrote an open letter to Krugman via the New York Times.
The letter was published in the New York Times Letters section on Friday, June 11 2021 (or shortly before) in reaction to Krugman’s June 8 column titled “Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns”.
Excerpts from the letter include:
> “I am writing to express my disappointment over Mr Krugman’s June 8 column, ‘Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns’. This is not the first time your columnist has used the word ‘leprechaun’ when referring to Ireland, and I see it as my duty to point out that this represents an unacceptable slur.”
“I do not go along with Mr Krugman’s disingenuous excuse that ‘the Irish have a sense of humour’ about his attacks on us. While I am always happy to engage in serious debate about Ireland’s economic performance, derogatory references in a leading newspaper like yours are no laughing matter.”
“Ireland has been fully engaged since 2013 in the international discussions about corporate tax, and we have proactively and diligently reformed our tax code in line with the new international norms agreed to thus far. Further agreement in this area cannot be arrived at through name-calling and national stereotyping.”
Krugman never apologized. Instead he continues to deploy racial slurs in his pathetic pursuit of clicks.
We Irish have an expression for twats like Krugman - gobshite.
The "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" that Professor Krugman references was a technically legal redistribution of wealth from American tax payers who paid for the essential public infrastructure that allowed these companies to thrive in the first place to the largest tech companies in the world, in this case Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. The scale of "avoidance" from this loophole was estimated at around $100 billion annually. Trump allowed all of this money to be repatriated tax free to the US as his only policy accomplishment in addition to more tax cuts in his first term.
These companies which comprise the "Magnificent Seven" have always put profits over people. They were merely more adept at cultivating a positive, ethical image, a "halo effect".
I’d love for a cooperative tech company to come along so I can dump Apple et al. Unfortunately I e worked for cooperatives and even THEY become crooked. The problem is humans. They cannot handle scarcity.
My guess is that tariffs are being applied to the prices of all goods, regardless of origin. In other words, stealthily. Here is an example: I had a conversation with the sales manager at a local auto dealer. His brand sell vehicles made both overseas and in the US. I asked about tariffs, and he said, yes, they were real. The manufacturer is applying the tariffs that impact one very popular model to all its models, including those made in the US. He said that amounted to an increase of $1500 to $2000 to the MSRP of every vehicle.
Another example is beer. Where I live, local distributors control the pricing and sales of a wide range of brands, and they handle both domestic and import labels. Rather than have the price of imports jump 10-15% with resulting sticker shock, they, too, are spreading the tariffs to other brands.
The upshot of these anecdotes, if they are representative, is that prices are slowly but surely and quietly going up.
This is called cost shifting. I worked in hospital administration IT (back in the day, now retired), and this is exactly what was done when Medicare and Medicaid did not reimburse enough to cover costs (and they probably still do not). Hospitals shifted the costs to the private payor patients (privately insured, mostly through their employers).
This cost shifting was a big game in places like Florida, where up to 90% of caseload at many hospitals would be government paid (Medicare/Medicaid).
The other thing that happens once the effect of tariffs flow through the economy is that they drag domestic prices up with them.
Consider that I manufacture a popular widget. The market is about 50/50 domestic/foreign supply. The domestic supply is dominated by two or three suppliers (and I'm one of them). If foreign-made widgets go up 12% because of tariffs, I'd be stupid not to raise my prices (maybe by 10%). I might even do it in a way that other local producers notice (so that they will follow my lead)
Marina Corina Machado from Venezuela is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuela, the people Trump and crew are murdering right and left--without any cause except they want someone to kill to show the World how great they are! The rightness of this is beyond speech.
From my middle class (now lower C when I WAS upper a few years back!) perspective, the tariffs the fake "tax cuts" (who benefit only the rich) and greed are sure raising my costs of living! I live on SS and my wife's small income and it gets harder each week to put groceries on the table. More of our savings head out the door when the property taxes insurance etc come due every 6 months. Where is all the price drops the orange monkey promised us? (NO I didn't vote for those clowns!) Al I can see is prices going steadily up, not in a shocking way, YET, and maybe that is why some are fooled into believing oh it's not that bad, add it all up and then tell me it's not that bad. And I can't afford to cheat on my taxes as the IRS will pick on us real taxpayers because we are cheaper to come after than the corporate cheats (almost all of them) As my wife's retirement closes in I wonder, how the hell are we gonna make it? The seniors and the youth are going to eat this economy very soon. And tRump and his merry band of misfit toys will continue to rip us off daily! What did WE do wrong to be so hated by the rich and powerful? or is it really just greed as their motivation??
In many ways the regime's influence on economic performance and culture looks like it may be somewhat gradual but pernicious, you know, like a slow-growing cancer. The drag of kleptocracy and growing corruption "trickling down" from the regime will crescendo over the next years of regime influence and control.
The "leprechaun" framing captures something essential: the real story isn't the headline tariff rate but the cumulative distortions beneath it.
But the most perilous effect isn't what has already happened — it's what has been taken away: policy flexibility.
We've moved from a broad, uneven trail where mistakes could be corrected to a tightrope where even small errors have outsized consequences. Tariffs, fiscal expansion, and political pressure on the Fed don't guarantee collapse; they guarantee vanishing margin for error.
The Fed can't easily stimulate without reigniting inflation. Congress can't spend without deepening deficits. Immigration restrictions keep labor supply tight just when flexibility is most needed.
A single shock — geopolitical flare-up, energy price spike, investment pullback, or policy delay — could now destabilize what would have been manageable before.
The "leprechaun" tariffs might not sink the economy directly, but they're building a world where policy becomes brittle. The danger isn't the wobble; it's that one strong draft could tip the balance — and the rope has become too narrow for recovery.
I can think of few things where this administration has done what well informed, rational people would do. They are not only a band of incompetents, but incompetents who almost always choose the wrong option. They could do better by just using random selection of options.
They are getting credit for the Israeli Hamas agreement, but it is mostly Tony Blair's doing. They merely adopted his plans and even got him to represent them in negotiations.
Their choices (which they think are in their interest) are backfiring almost every time. You'd think that they would have noticed by now, unless that's the intent.
"A single shock"
That has been true for decades and the American economy has went through boom and busts because of it.
You are not speculating about anything new.
I believe the worst part of Peter Navarro’s tariff tirade was to blow up the conventional concept that since
the end of WW II we wanted to bring
peace to the world through mutually beneficial trade relationships. The
struggle to implement the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade went through multiple rounds ,
culminating in the WTO and a movement in Europe to achieve a common currency.
Naturally, some strategic decisions had to be made with respect to violations of trade agreements ( think China for example ) - but to
blow up a decades long precedent
turning allies into adversaries and
vice versa - is just - well
NUCKING FUTS .
Great point. Though to push my metaphor to the breaking point, it's no longer like driving rough terrain blindfolded, but a tightrope.
It’s disappointing to see many large, successful companies act as poor corporate citizens. Apple, for example, has benefited enormously from America’s laws, infrastructure, and past public investments in technology, yet it claims Ireland as its home base to avoid paying U.S. taxes. They take from the system that enabled their success but give little back. If a person behaved that way, constantly taking without reciprocating, you’d eventually stop associating with them.
Large corporations are amoral swine. The Citizens United decision claiming that corporations were people was ludicrous and will probably be the end of the US. If Apple claims that it's making it's profits in Ireland, then force Apple to argue all it's patent and trademark infringement cases there, and make Ireland enforce them.
I would be disappointed if a company that I invested money in didn’t do everything they legally could to reduce costs. Including avoiding government taxes, ensuring full reimbursements of taxes such as VAT, avoiding tariffs and fees, optimizing transfer pricing, operating under the best business structure that would reduce costs, allow carry forward losses etc etc etc
If it is legal I want them to do it.
Having worked in international business, my experience is I am hardly alone in this expectation. Don’t do it and you are gifting an advantage to all your competitors.
Don’t blame Apple et al.
The laws need to be changed.
I understand where you are coming from but this is the ethos that some feel is a huge problem. Bottom line over everything else, shareholder value over everything else. Shouldn't there be ethics in business other than the black and white of what is legal and not legal? Do businesses have any responsibility at all to the communities they serve? The environment they impact? The people that work for them?
I moslty agree. After much thought about this, I think the only realistic and effective ways of dealing with this moral conundrum is to lobby government to tighten laws, (eg kangaroo leather in California) shame/black ban/boycott companies into doing the right thing (eg Nike and sweat shops) and maybe donate your Apple dividends/capital gains (you almost certainly have some in your 401k) to a charity of your choice … and here’s the kicker … don’t forget to take the tax write off. Unfortunately it all kind of all comes back to money.
And don’t think selling your shares in a company that you find morally repugnant is going to help. You actually hold more power with nominal ownership as an activist shareholder.
Their responsibility is to follow the laws and regulations and pay the taxes that are due. It's up to government to look out for us. Private companies look out for their owners, and that's fine, as long as government reigns them in.
Expecting them to "do the right thing" gets into a very murky philosophical area. Just how much I'd supposed to be enough? How much above the required amount they currently pay should Apple decide to voluntarily overpay in taxes?
On the other hand it doesn't seem right to tax a company on their foreign revenues when our citizens are not buying product.
It would be like you living in one state and another state decides they should have the legal right to tax you. Based on what?
A bigger issue is that companies outsource production to avoid American labor costs, OSHA standards and so on and then import the finished product back into the USA. Voila and then they have larger profit margins.
I noted several years ago that several of the largest multi-national companies had the largest groups of tax lawyers in the country. They did not put these groups together to manage the payment of taxes. The role of these large groups was to find mechanisms for tax avoidance and to lobby for rule changes that could be exploited. Multinational organizations offer great opportunities to use accounting systems and other mechanisms to put income or profits into countries with low tax rates.
I reached the conclusion a number of years ago when I was reviewing the financial arrangements of two silicon valley giants that we needed to modify how taxes were assessed. For instance, for the US to get its fair share of the tax from the incomes that these companies generate from US sales there needs to a minimum tax that is related to sales. For instance, if the company generates 40% of its profits through the sale of consumer products in the US and its profit margin on the products it sells in the US is high, then there should be a minimum tax assessed on US sales. Such a system would be an alternative minimum tax computed upon the sales in the US and what percentage of those sales are related to total income and not solely the income tax the company computes using its various schemes to place the bulk of its income in tax havens.
The US Government aggressively challenges any attempt by other countries to tax US multinational corporations fairly on the profits actually made in those countries but by various means, mostly transfer pricing and exorbitant “licensing fees” are moved to low tax countries like Ireland.
It came to me this morning that Trump's destruction of the economy and of much of US scientific and medical research capability may lead to his rapid downfall. Hitler and Mussolini both assumed control of their countries when the countries were in extremely dire financial circumstances, and at least temporarily improved the living conditions of the Italian and German populations.
Trump assumed control of the US when its economy was the envy of the world and is instituting a series of really stupid policies that will eventually cause great economic hardship and pain for the American people. The disruption may be temporarily masked, but the chickens will come home to roost. Much of the population of the US seems to be willing to sit on their hands while the law and the Constitution are trampled on, but if Trump causes a serious recession or depression, the fury of the a population deprived of luxuries they believe they are entitled to will be very hard for him to spin or control.
Yes, more people will complain more quickly
The complaints have already begun - perhaps Christmas will be joyful after all!
I would like to read more about the actual impact of the Great AI Investment. It seems to me that it should have very little impact elsewhere in the economy (beyond driving energy prices) because it's essentially billionaires and corporations sloshing money back and forth between them, with comparatively little of that money splashing out into the rest of the economy.
I admittedly don't know a lot about this but one impact is the huge construction projects for the data centers. Think Amazon-sized warehouses full of electronics. Building these facilities involves architects/engineers/construction workers, materials for construction that help companies that sell material, all the many electronic components of these huge servers which are all produced by someone and shipped/transported by someone else, plus all the workers who install and then maintain these physical components. I still don't think that explains how this is propping up the stock market but it's one thing people don't always think about when they hear "AI Investment".
Sounds about right. I forgot that we're still in the "build it" phase of this tulip bubble.
As an ordinary retail shopper, I observed another factor which has delayed consumer price increases (inflation): Stores like Marshalls, Ross, Costco seem to be hugely overstocked revealing that they (and many other retailers) made pre-tariff massive purchases (even more than usual before the holiday season) and are delaying the need to raise final prices. I expect by Jan this hedge will run its course.
I work for a large chain as a tiny cog in the clothes department and in the recent months we've increased our prices about ten percent.
I'm seeing the same thing to some extent. Unexpected "sales", for example.
The tariffs are one more example of Trump promising that ‘free lunch’ of rhetorical junk food to his idiotic followers… just like Mexico building the wall and paying for it too, ‘concepts of a plan’ for better healthcare and (like magic) no more global warming problems to worry about.
We need to be very careful (and skeptical) of reported inflation numbers like the CPI when assessing the damage from tariffs and Trump economic policy. The CPI is heavily weighted to housing and puts much less weight on health care, insurance and basic food items which have (and will) spike and are of primary importance on a daily basis.
Trump's doing his best to reduce housing costs - mostly by tariffing the inputs to house construction (like Canadian softwood lumber).
I know Paul you are not a fan of the Irish economy- and you like the see the entire Irish economy through the prism solely of tax policy and avoidance- but maybe give the hackneyed leprechaun stage Oirish language a rest (or at least as respectful retirement). Its crude and arguably offensive, whether intended or not. Maybe even Trumpian one could suggest. a loyal subscriber, in yes Ireland.
Ireland walked itself into this situation by cute hoordom and corruption related to Revenue. Dutch sandwiches and the like that l believe were allowed because of politicans related to Governement lobbying Revenue Commissioners illegally/unconstitutionally. We deserve this sort of comment.
Krugman’s “leprechaun economics” is not harmless wit. It sits in the same racist lineage as the 19th century Punch cartoons that drew the Irish as ape-faced drunks with shillelaghs. The leprechaun was just another way of saying the Irish are childish-dishonest-unserious.
Imagine if a Nobel laureate casually coined “Sambo economics” or “Chink economics.” The outrage would be immediate, the career damage permanent. Yet somehow calling the Irish leprechauns is treated as a bit of fun. It is not. It is the recycling of old anti-Irish racism dressed up as analysis.
What happened in 2015 was not a fairy tale. It was Apple and other US corporations gaming the tax code. To turn that into a joke about leprechauns is lazy-ignorant-insulting.
The Irish deserve better than this. Krugman should issue a public apology and retire the phrase permanently. Until then he is a gobshite playing with racist tropes.
We Americans have great respect for Irish culture in general and leprechauns in particular. My wife makes me watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People at least once a year.
There's also the fact that roughly 20% of us are of Irish descent, and are fiercely proud of it. Even if our grasp of Irish history and culture is not as refined as that of our EU counterparts.
Have a watch of The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara from 1952, if you haven’t already. A classic of the genre. And no we're not in the least bit concerned about people having a laugh about leprechauns.
It’s easy usage may also be flagging a dark current truth. That for all the political rhetoric of Dublin’s internationalism the global billionaire ruling class remains an Anglo-American perfidious hegemon. As long as Ireland remains conveniently broken in two by partition nothing will socially change.
A leprechaun is an imaginary being, unlike the Sambos and Chinks you compare to. Let’s be real here.
Sambo is an historical tribal ethnie ?
Similar to thinking the chat about annexing Canada is funny vs deeply wrong
When did he call the Irish leprechauns? He’s asserting the economic gains were illusory and not real… like Leprechauns. Maybe you disagree with his point but seems like a reasonable editorial choice - interweaving a cultural trope (perhaps overused) with his main point. If it were about Texas he could have called it ‘Cowboy Economics’
I didn’t read the original article where Leprechauns came up…so maybe you have a point, maybe not, but my impression is that you are going way out of your way to be outraged.
No less a person than the Irish Ambassador of the US was also outraged.
He wrote an open letter to Krugman via the New York Times.
The letter was published in the New York Times Letters section on Friday, June 11 2021 (or shortly before) in reaction to Krugman’s June 8 column titled “Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns”.
Excerpts from the letter include:
> “I am writing to express my disappointment over Mr Krugman’s June 8 column, ‘Yellen’s New Alliance Against Leprechauns’. This is not the first time your columnist has used the word ‘leprechaun’ when referring to Ireland, and I see it as my duty to point out that this represents an unacceptable slur.”
“I do not go along with Mr Krugman’s disingenuous excuse that ‘the Irish have a sense of humour’ about his attacks on us. While I am always happy to engage in serious debate about Ireland’s economic performance, derogatory references in a leading newspaper like yours are no laughing matter.”
“Ireland has been fully engaged since 2013 in the international discussions about corporate tax, and we have proactively and diligently reformed our tax code in line with the new international norms agreed to thus far. Further agreement in this area cannot be arrived at through name-calling and national stereotyping.”
Krugman never apologized. Instead he continues to deploy racial slurs in his pathetic pursuit of clicks.
We Irish have an expression for twats like Krugman - gobshite.
Offended people I got your binky right here.
Oooo that hurts so good!
The "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" that Professor Krugman references was a technically legal redistribution of wealth from American tax payers who paid for the essential public infrastructure that allowed these companies to thrive in the first place to the largest tech companies in the world, in this case Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. The scale of "avoidance" from this loophole was estimated at around $100 billion annually. Trump allowed all of this money to be repatriated tax free to the US as his only policy accomplishment in addition to more tax cuts in his first term.
These companies which comprise the "Magnificent Seven" have always put profits over people. They were merely more adept at cultivating a positive, ethical image, a "halo effect".
I’d love for a cooperative tech company to come along so I can dump Apple et al. Unfortunately I e worked for cooperatives and even THEY become crooked. The problem is humans. They cannot handle scarcity.
I like the phrase "more or less exactly". I'll have to remember that
Precisely, more or less.
Excellent! Some equivalents:
Approximately true
the alternative truth
more pure
less pure...
About
My guess is that tariffs are being applied to the prices of all goods, regardless of origin. In other words, stealthily. Here is an example: I had a conversation with the sales manager at a local auto dealer. His brand sell vehicles made both overseas and in the US. I asked about tariffs, and he said, yes, they were real. The manufacturer is applying the tariffs that impact one very popular model to all its models, including those made in the US. He said that amounted to an increase of $1500 to $2000 to the MSRP of every vehicle.
Another example is beer. Where I live, local distributors control the pricing and sales of a wide range of brands, and they handle both domestic and import labels. Rather than have the price of imports jump 10-15% with resulting sticker shock, they, too, are spreading the tariffs to other brands.
The upshot of these anecdotes, if they are representative, is that prices are slowly but surely and quietly going up.
This is called cost shifting. I worked in hospital administration IT (back in the day, now retired), and this is exactly what was done when Medicare and Medicaid did not reimburse enough to cover costs (and they probably still do not). Hospitals shifted the costs to the private payor patients (privately insured, mostly through their employers).
This cost shifting was a big game in places like Florida, where up to 90% of caseload at many hospitals would be government paid (Medicare/Medicaid).
The other thing that happens once the effect of tariffs flow through the economy is that they drag domestic prices up with them.
Consider that I manufacture a popular widget. The market is about 50/50 domestic/foreign supply. The domestic supply is dominated by two or three suppliers (and I'm one of them). If foreign-made widgets go up 12% because of tariffs, I'd be stupid not to raise my prices (maybe by 10%). I might even do it in a way that other local producers notice (so that they will follow my lead)
I will read Dr. Krugman as soon as I properly wake up! But, this is what I woke up to in today's news!!!!
Hell yeah!
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/nobel-peace-prize-awarded-venezuelas-maria-corina-machado-rcna236816
Marina Corina Machado from Venezuela is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Venezuela, the people Trump and crew are murdering right and left--without any cause except they want someone to kill to show the World how great they are! The rightness of this is beyond speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE
From my middle class (now lower C when I WAS upper a few years back!) perspective, the tariffs the fake "tax cuts" (who benefit only the rich) and greed are sure raising my costs of living! I live on SS and my wife's small income and it gets harder each week to put groceries on the table. More of our savings head out the door when the property taxes insurance etc come due every 6 months. Where is all the price drops the orange monkey promised us? (NO I didn't vote for those clowns!) Al I can see is prices going steadily up, not in a shocking way, YET, and maybe that is why some are fooled into believing oh it's not that bad, add it all up and then tell me it's not that bad. And I can't afford to cheat on my taxes as the IRS will pick on us real taxpayers because we are cheaper to come after than the corporate cheats (almost all of them) As my wife's retirement closes in I wonder, how the hell are we gonna make it? The seniors and the youth are going to eat this economy very soon. And tRump and his merry band of misfit toys will continue to rip us off daily! What did WE do wrong to be so hated by the rich and powerful? or is it really just greed as their motivation??
Greed.
They don't hate us. I'm sure they feel badly when they're picking our pockets. Just like the hunter feels badly just before they shoot the deer.
I think they do hate us, or are totally indifferent like we are silent green to them...
The daily, if not hourly, destruction of the U.S. will have unimaginable effects that I try hard not to anticipate so as not to die on the spot.
In many ways the regime's influence on economic performance and culture looks like it may be somewhat gradual but pernicious, you know, like a slow-growing cancer. The drag of kleptocracy and growing corruption "trickling down" from the regime will crescendo over the next years of regime influence and control.
Or boiling a frog. By the time the water is boiling, it's too late for the frog.