E30: “Tariffs are bananas,” who decided they belong in my “$20 burrito?”

Banana harvest, Shoham Avisrur

Tony Morley, November 6th, 2026

“Remember next time, dear reader, when you go to the supermarket to purchase your bananas that you may be spending more of your hard-earned wages on making sure that countries in Africa maintain a competitive advantage” — Ted Grainger

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Who Put Tariffs in My ($20!) Burrito

“From aluminum wrappers to beef, cheese, and tomatoes, Washington has found a way to make every bite more expensive.”

“Aluminum foil carries a 50 percent tariff”, “a 17 percent duty on Mexican tomatoes”, and “Ground beef reached $6.89 a pound in July, up 57 percent from five years ago.” “According to the Tax Foundation, tariffs will likely cost the average household $840 a year.”

Keep the Case for Free Trade Simple

“Trade isn’t complicated. People around the world work to produce things for one another—and protectionism makes that cooperation harder.”

“In our everyday exchanges, we all want to get as much as we can with the least sacrifice. Some might even call this “the art of the deal!” But in international trade, people’s rhetoric shifts, as if the objective were to “give, and not to get”—to produce and export (give) as much as we can while importing (get) as little as possible.”

A golden age of science is coming

“AI just blows up this constraint completely. If an AI agent can function as an autonomous researcher, there’s no constraint on the number of researchers in the world — you can just build more of them, by building more computer chips and data centers that enable the running of more AI agents.”

Government to blame for higher prices

“Voter concerns about affordability have been a major theme in political races, and understandably so. However, what is often unsaid is that many government policies are to blame for continued high prices”

The West’s Free Speech Consensus Is Fracturing

“Across Europe, governments increasingly treat liberty as a risk to be managed. The idea that “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” has become a justification for intrusive regulation.”

“European crackdowns on citizen speech is provoking Washington to respond. Will free expression become a transatlantic fault line?”

Labour’s food tariffs are bananas

“The Government has admitted what has been obvious since Adam Smith, tariffs only serve to make your own population poorer”

“Personally, I think it is wonderful and nothing exemplifies the beauty of free trade like the yearlong availability of tomatoes”

“Remember next time, dear reader, when you go to the supermarket to purchase your bananas that you may be spending more of your hard-earned wages on making sure that countries in Africa maintain a competitive advantage because it makes the British Government feel good about itself”

Ranked: America’s Energy Production by Source in 2026

“Natural gas and natural gas plant liquids together account for 47.6% of U.S. primary energy production. By comparison, crude oil contributes 26.1%, while coal supplies 9.8%.”

Poverty 1950—2050

“Between 1950 and 2025, the world has experienced remarkable progress in reducing the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty from 60 percent to 10 percent.

Consider the lifetime of someone in their 70s today. When they were born, six out of ten people were living in extreme poverty globally. Today, one out of ten people are living in extreme poverty.”

That said, “If current trajectories persist, little progress in extreme poverty will be observed until 2030 and extreme poverty is likely to increase by 2050.”

The moral case for capitalism

“Although it is important, it isn’t enough to point out the practical problems with socialism. It’s time to make the moral case for capitalism.”

“At every step of capitalism you’ll find individuals freely choosing what to build, where to work, what to buy and how to spend their time.”

“Those who do that successfully can earn a profit. In a free market, that’s not a dirty word. It’s the reward a business earns for providing a good or service that someone else wants at a price they are willing to pay.”

The Billionaire Tax Is on Its Way to Defeat. California Will Still Pay a Price.

“The mere threat of a wealth tax has already inflicted lasting damage on California’s economy, prompting many high net-worth individuals to flee the state, taking their taxable income with them. Other state lawmakers considering a wealth tax should take note.”

“Californians may have spared themselves a costly experiment. The measure would have imposed a tax that numerous European countries have tried and abandoned after finding its economic costs too difficult to justify.”

The Errors of Economic Nationalism

Economic nationalism is mercantilism with a new label. Federal stakes in ~30 private firms, higher tariffs and favoured-company deals all assume officials can pick winners. They can’t.

“Republican officials have been putting forward economic nationalist policies” “This represents a significant departure from the limited-government, free-market principles of the political right only a few decades ago.”