Trumpzilla Has Ginned Up A Trade War With China – Long Live Smoot-Hawley

 

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – No, you’re not answering the question.  How are we getting pasted?  What more do you want?  What is missing from the day that you and I are kind of sharing at this moment?  What is missing from this day that you wish to reclaim from the Chinese?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Hello, Chuck, how you doing?

Caller Chuck:  Hey.  Good, Mike.  How are you today?

Mike:  I am well, sir.  Thank you.

Caller Chuck:  I just wanted to touch base about Donald Trump.  First, I think you’re a great American and we are typically —

Mike:  I am not concerned with being a great American, sir.  I am concerned with being a great citizen of our Lord’s kingdom.  That’s my first concern.  I hope that I am addressing that citizenship first and foremost.  Then, if after that great American follows, which is up for you and others to decide, so be it.  Just wanted to clarify that.

Caller Chuck:  That works.  They should be aligned.  Typically we are in violent agreement.  We’re disconnected with respect to Donald Trump.  That causes me pause.  I think that Donald is talking about a lot of things that nobody has wanted to talk about or has had the political gumption to talk about, especially with respect to the economy.  We’re just getting pasted by the rest of the world with respect to intellectual property and trade and — [/private]

Mike:  Chuck, what are you talking to me on right now?

Caller Chuck:  Right now I’m on a cell phone.

Mike:  Are you in Pennsylvania or traveling through or from Pennsylvania?

Caller Chuck:  Actually I am right by the Tappan Zee Bridge on my commute to Massachusetts.

Mike:  I’m sorry to hear that.  So you’re on a cell phone and you’re talking to me.  You’re changing in between cell phone towers.  You’re going to work in a different state.  You’re listening to me via the marvelous technology known as satellite radio.  You’re probably going to have breakfast when you get there or some water or something.  You’re probably going to be able to have lunch today.  You’re going to drive back home tonight and have dinner.  How are we getting pasted?

Caller Chuck:  With respect to China —

Mike:  No, you’re not answering the question.  How are we getting pasted?  What more do you want?  What is missing from the day that you and I are kind of sharing at this moment?  What is missing from this day that you wish to reclaim from the Chinese?

Caller Chuck:  How about intellectual property?

Mike:  Okay.  Does that make the coffee taste better that you’re sipping right now?

Caller Chuck:  Now, no.

Mike:  You’re talking to me on a cell phone.  Does it put a better phone in your hand?  Are we going to have more clear conversation if we do this?

Caller Chuck:  In five years or less, it absolutely will, Mike.

Mike:  Really?  Explain to me five — now, is it five years or is it less than five years?  I like to deal in universals.  Is it five years or less than five years?  If it’s less than five years, is it four years?  Is it four years, three weeks, and two days?  Can we get a little closer?

Caller Chuck:  My point is —

Mike:  You see, folks, no one wants to answer any of my questions.  When I ask — this is a simple question.  I’m not trying to entrap you.  I’m simply asking simple questions.  Let’s deal in some universals here, some things that we can agree upon that could happen or we can say we want to happen, we want to happen on this date.  Let’s just say: What year do you want this collapse or whatever it is that’s going to happen with the intellectual property to occur?

Caller Chuck:  Well, in many respects it’s already happened.

Mike:  So what intellectual property are we talking about specifically?

Caller Chuck:  You can talk about semiconductor tests.  You want to talk about cell phones.  You want to talk about —

Mike:  So in five years you’re not going to have a cell phone because the intellectual property will belong to the Chinese?

Caller Chuck:  Well, the intellectual property, designs, research and development, all those things have been compromised.

Mike:  So in five years you’re not going to have a phone?  The Chinese are just going to take the semiconductor and they’re not going to — what are they going to do with it?

Caller Chuck:  That’s a potential.  They’ll take it and they’ll manufacture it at a fraction of the cost because they don’t have to put the research and development on it.

Mike:  Again, that means you’re not going to have a phone?

Caller Chuck:  I may not have a phone because I may not have a job.

Mike:  Okay.  And if you don’t have a job that’s going to be the fault of the Chinese directly?

Caller Chuck:  No, that’s going to be the fault of our government because we don’t do anything about intellectual property.

Mike:  What are you going to do about international intellectual property?

Caller Chuck:  The first thing we have to do is start to recognize that we’re not defending it.  Those industries that compromise intellectual property, you tax them and you make them less viable in the marketplace.

Mike:  So at the end of the day, Americans aren’t going to have any jobs, therefore we won’t have any cell phones, and what?  We’re going to be an agrarian society and we’re going to be groveling for grain from the Canadians and the Mexicans?  What happens at the end of this?

Caller Chuck:  I think the only thing you’re looking for is a fair shake in the world market.  That’s where we’re not getting a fair shake to the world market right now.

Mike:  Does this apply across the board or is this just semiconductors?

Caller Chuck:  You have the machine tool industry.  I drive right through Bridgeport, Connecticut and the machine tool industry is a shell of what it was before.  GM is about ready to make cars in China based on technology that has been developed here.  The next big thing is the automobile industry, although there are challenges internally with that.  But from an economic standpoint, we’re not on a level playing field.  I think that’s my point, Mike.

Mike:  So what we should do — Scott Walker wants to build a wall between us and Canada.  Donald Trump wants to build a wall between us and Mexico.  What we should do then is build an intellectual and electrical and digital wall and a physical one on the Pacific Coast to shield us from the Chinese.

Caller Chuck:  What you do is simply enforce the laws for intellectual property and patent laws that are already in place.

Mike:  Let me cut to the chase here.  Steve Jobs said this best to Obama at a dinner in 2009.  When the president said, “You’re going to bring manufacturing back here,” Steve Jobs told President Obama — this is in Walter Isaacson’s book Jobs — Steve Jobs stopped all the conversation at the table and said: Mr. President, with all due respect, that’s not going to happen.  Obama just dropped his fork on the plate and so did everyone else.  It was like the old E.F. Hutton commercials: When Steve Jobs talks, people listen.  Jobs followed that up with: I’m going to tell you why it’s not going to happen.  Those plants that are being built over there that steal the intellectual property, as you just described it, were built by American companies with American dollars funded by American entrepreneurs and staffed and run by American executives. [/private]

So if you’re telling me that it’s the fault of the Chinese, I doubt that the average Chinese person that’s wallowing around in whatever it is they do on a daily basis has any knowledge of this.  The fact of the matter is that Americans take advantage of this.  It’s American companies that take advantage of this.  If you want to go after someone for intellectual property and for all these crimes that you’re describing, all these horrific trade deals and this theft and abuse and exploitation, this might be as simple as let’s just re-up some semblance or something that resembles the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.  You make it in China.  If it has a circuit board on it, you can’t import it here.  If you do, we’ll tariff it.  We’ll tariff it to the point that the similar circuit board that is made in California or Utah or wherever the case may be is competitive.

Go ahead and do that and be prepared then that your cushy lifestyle that you currently enjoy with all these electronic gadgets, all these things that are funded or run by silicon boards and silicon-based processors are going to cost 15, 20, 30 times more than what they cost today, which is fine.  Go ahead and do it.  I have no objection to it.  But that’s what you’re talking about.

End Mike Church Show Transcript