What most of us don’t realize about tariffs is … that we, the consumers of our country, are the ones who pay. It is a tax on ourselves where, whether by intent or coincidence, it overwhelms any supposed income tax relief. Beyond that, the imposition of improper tariffs have been factors contributing to economic depressions and even civil wars. From the very beginning of our nation our government has used tariffs as a means to encourage and protect local industries and, for the most part, it worked. It allowed small entrepreneurs to grow and compete with long established industries in foreign nations. When administered by the Congress, tariffs often favored some states over others. Finally, in the early 20th Century, Congress handed the power of imposing tariffs to the Executive Branch in order to more nearly serve the needs of the whole country.
I am naive in Economics. So I’ve reached the conclusion that we, the consumers, pay the tariff by a simple thought experiment. I arbitrarily chose Television sets as an example. I purchased my 1st TV in 1959, probably a Motorola 19 or 20 inch B&W table model. The choice of manufacturers at that time were US companies such as RCA, Westinghouse, and Admiral. All of these companies were soon using components supplied by startup Asian companies who had unlimited cheap labor and who, by the 1970’s, had completely forced the US companies out of the TV manufacturing business. So now that all of our TVs are imported, let’s decide to impose a 10% tariff on their price to the US consumer. A friend buys a $1200 Sony TV several months before the tariff is imposed. Now, I purchase the same TV and find that the price is $1300. Customs collects 10% of the import value of $1000 from the merchant and sends it to the U.S.Treasury. The local merchant adds $200 as his profit to his new cost of $1100 and sells the TV to me for $1300. I have now paid the tariff imposed on Japanese TVs.
Such a tax could greatly benefit our Nation if it were designated to reduce our National Debt … rather than to build some wall …
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Sunday, June 17, 2018
On Stuttering
Last night, while watching the excellent film, The King’s Speech, I remembered that many years ago I stumbled upon a means of making anyone stutter and thus pointing to one possible cause. In the film, Albert, Duke of York and 2nd in-line to become King of England, seeks help for his severe stuttering from Lionel Logue, a speech therapist,. In one scene, ‘Bertie’ reads the monologue “To be, or not to be …” perfectly whilst his hearing is blocked with headphones emitting classical music {‘pink noise’ would have been a better choice]. So. What’s going on here?
By the 1960’s most tape recorders used 3 heads in the recording process: an Erase head, a Record head, and finally, a Play head with the tape moving so as to be first erased then recorded. This results in a delay between the time a sound is recorded and when it played back to a listener. In tapes running at a speed of 15 inches/second this would result in a delay of around 100 milliseconds if the heads were separated by 1½ inches. Speech normally reaches a speaker’s ear in less than a millisecond. If one records their voice while listening to the recording on headphones, they immediately start elongating their words to try to synchronize their speaking with what they hear in the headphones. This soon lapses into uncontrollable stammering. So. A delay in what a speaker hears when s/he speaks can certainly cause stammering. And. When blocking the path of what s/he hears when speaking allows fluent speech, then this implies a hearing delay exists somewhere in the middle or inner ear, or in the brain itself. Finding where the delay occurs may allow finding means to reduce or eliminate the delay. Otherwise, practicing physical techniques for ignoring the delays such as Logue used provides some relief. However. If they had provided King George VI with headphones issuing noise [or possibly ear plugs], he would have produced perfect radio speeches.
By the 1960’s most tape recorders used 3 heads in the recording process: an Erase head, a Record head, and finally, a Play head with the tape moving so as to be first erased then recorded. This results in a delay between the time a sound is recorded and when it played back to a listener. In tapes running at a speed of 15 inches/second this would result in a delay of around 100 milliseconds if the heads were separated by 1½ inches. Speech normally reaches a speaker’s ear in less than a millisecond. If one records their voice while listening to the recording on headphones, they immediately start elongating their words to try to synchronize their speaking with what they hear in the headphones. This soon lapses into uncontrollable stammering. So. A delay in what a speaker hears when s/he speaks can certainly cause stammering. And. When blocking the path of what s/he hears when speaking allows fluent speech, then this implies a hearing delay exists somewhere in the middle or inner ear, or in the brain itself. Finding where the delay occurs may allow finding means to reduce or eliminate the delay. Otherwise, practicing physical techniques for ignoring the delays such as Logue used provides some relief. However. If they had provided King George VI with headphones issuing noise [or possibly ear plugs], he would have produced perfect radio speeches.
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