Fighting inflation!!! Except on cars – those don't matter . . .

Photo above - September 2023. President Biden walks the picket line with UAW strikers, in support of their $140,000 annual salary demand. This month he announced a 100% tariff on some affordably priced imported cars.

“Your vehicle list price is $20,000, ma'am. With the new White House 100% tariff, that will come to a total of $40,000. Would you like to finance that? Our loan rates have recently gone up, due to the Fed Funds increases, which are the highest in 2 decades. . . “

All people wanna do is cut their emissions, and get better fuel efficiency. But we better not try that with cars made overseas. It's 1976 all over again. During the Carter administration quotas were established to stop the arrival of fuel efficient Japanese cars. Buy a V8, or get lost!

Okay, I get it. China is America's most dangerous adversary. Except for possibly Russia, which is invading Ukraine. And Radical Islamists, who regularly post spoofed videos of the White House getting nuked. And North Korea, which will eventually have one of their ICBM tests be successful. After those guys, China is the worst.

China is so bad, that President Biden held a lavish state dinner for Chairman Xi Jinping last year. With literally thousands of propaganda photos. If 100% tariffs were on Biden's mind back then, he neglected to mention it. As his closest aides admit, however, "the president has good days and bad days", like any octogenarian.

So is a 100% tariff on imported cars “good day” thinking, or “bad day” thinking? It's certainly one of those “I don't really care about inflation” thinking days. It's also “let's protect UAW jobs” thinking. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the quiet part out loud earlier this week. See link below.

If you're a Jennifer Granholm fan – as I certainly am – you will recall last year that she took a summer road trip in a Ford Mach-E mustang-like SUV. She and her entourage flew to some city, joined a caravan of mostly ICE vehicles that ran interference for her, and drove 500 miles or so to show that you can recharge an electric car with no problems. Except there were problems. Several charging stations which showed as “operational” on the route map were, in fact, out of order. Resourceful Granholm aides raced ahead to the next one – at a Wal-Mart I believe – and boxed it in so that no legitimate electric vehicle owners could use it. To keep it available for the DOE secretary's arrival. After she recharged, and posed for a photo op, the charging station was re-opened to the public. This is all 100% true.

Back to inflation. I don't need President Biden to tell me how to fight inflation, and when to give in to it. How I spend my take home pay is my own damn business. I already pay federal income tax, gasoline tax, sales tax, social security tax, and what not. The rest of my money shouldn't be confiscated with a 100% imported tariff as a ploy to remind UAW members who to vote for in November.

I blame the founding fathers, actually. They created a Bill of Rights that seems to protect us against everything – except presidents who dream up 100% tariffs when they're behind in the polls. Wouldn't it just be simpler to send his opponent to prison?

I'm just sayin' . . .

~Biden admin official says higher tariffs on Chinese EVs are crucial for US automakers (msn.com)~