The Ron Show3 Huhti 2025

Donald also took a "day off" from Bueller's economics class

Who among us isn't a little "Ferris Bueller," right? Outside of those rare, constantly driven and meticulous types, we all take little breaks and skirt by when we believe we can.

The second Trump presidency seems like a lot of that - Donald and company just gliding by without putting in much effort to "show their work" but definitely there to hand in their assignment anyway.

Such was the case with Trump's "Liberation Day" Rose Garden ceremony yesterday. So much pomp and circumstance for a day when many economists - even conservative lawmakers and farmers - believe Trump just ignited a trade war that's going to lead to a recession - or worse.

Pffft; only commoners like us every really feel the kind of pain that comes with a recession (or worse) Even the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump's "Liberation Day" simply "buy another yacht day" for the well-connected and well-heeled.

But say Trump and company actually do think sparking a global trade war via tariffs is somehow - for the first time in modern history - going to usher in some economic nirvana.

They say that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It was on 'Ferris Bueller's Day off' the he missed his economics teacher droning on about 'Hawley-Smoot' tariffs fanning the flames of the Great Depression, for example. Even noted C and D student George W. Bush knew the folly in adopting the "evil triplets" of "isolationism, protectionism and nativism." It was her, after all, who gave something of a 'master class' and precautionary warning about those "triplets" and a reminder the damage "Smoot-Hawley" (or is it "Hawley-Smoot?" did in the 1930s, in a CSPAN Q&A fourteen years ago.

My God, George W. Bush sounding professorial by comparison.

Then there's the formula used to decide the rate of reciprocal tariff being levied. One economist and author termed it a "back-of-the-envelope" calculation.

It was back on November 21st last year that I had Georgia Recorder columnist Jay Bookman on to discuss the many and varied ways Trump's tariff, tax and deportation policies were going to impact Georgians' budgets. The reaction yesterday, throughout Georgia's economics circles was "pretty insane."

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