Tariffs & Syria: Timing Is Everything

McAlvany Weekly Commentary

Rapid Middle East Re-Shuffle With Assad's Exit Invisible Hand Of Free Markets VS Tariff Strategy Send Questions For Q&A Program To [e-mail] "There's a long period of status quo. It was upturned quickly. In this case, you had the Gaza conflict in Israel's engagement with Hamas and Hezbollah. And then we have the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which, you look at these two factors, and they actually inadvertently blew up the 54-year-old regime in Syria. Without Hezbollah on the ground, without Russia in the sky, Assad could not keep the reins of power. So, yeah, timing is everything. Things change quickly, and I think we have to be honest with ourselves when things do change." —David McAlvany Kevin: Welcome to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. I'm Kevin Orrick, along with David McAlvany. Well, David, today is your 50th birthday, and sorry, I just have to betray the age, but it's pretty darned exciting to have you sitting here and realize that I've known you since, what, you were 12. David: It's been a few years. Kevin: We've had a few Taliskers together. You studied for your pilot's license over at our house when you were just— David: You taught me how to fly-fish. Kevin: Fly-fishing. That's exactly right. But I couldn't wait. I had to give it to you unwrapped. I got you a copy, and one of our clients actually knows about this. I've shared with him just the other day that I found a copy of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, written in 1776, but this was the published date: 1818. It's an amazing copy. You can tell the people who owned it ahead of you, Dave, from 1818 on. They treasured the book because they have marginalia in there and notes to themselves and little clips from articles and magazines from the 1800s that they pasted into the book that added to the commentary of the book. So I was just extremely excited to have you see this. David: It makes me wonder what happens to the books that I've read and the notes that I've made in those books. I don't know that anyone will appreciate the conversations that I've had with the authors, the way I have enjoyed and engaged and appreciated them. Kevin: As you write marginalia in your books. David: Yeah. But I mean, there is a hope that, like this, a couple centuries later, you get to look and say, that's the point, isn't it? Here's the conversation. Here's what he picks up. There's the debate. He nailed it. This is where he engages with the author. And no, Smith's not right on that point. So the engagement, the challenge, the debate, it's pretty cool to see it in the margins. Kevin: Well, and we've been talking about, with Trump coming in there are a lot of applicable things that we can be looking at because right now there's talk here in America of tariffs. Adam Smith addressed tariffs, and you've interviewed Michael Pettis, who recently has written about tariffs, and I don't know that he necessarily agrees with Adam Smith in all occasions. And so wouldn't it be fun if the two could debate each other and actually say, okay, Adam Smith's saying, "No, it's the invisible hand, not the government." And Pettis going, "No. Sometimes the government can get away with it." What do you think? David: Yeah, well, just as a reminder, real quick before we dive in there, we have our Q&A coming up, and so if you would submit questions, would love to engage with you as best we can. Send those over to [e-mail]. That's [e-mail]. If there are questions of a metaphysical nature, I probably will leave those for a private conversation with you. Let's schedule some time. If it's economics, if it's finance, if it's international relations, public policies— Kevin: Scotch recommendations. David: Oh, certainly, we can certainly— Yeah, the merits of peat, let me tell you. Kevin: But talking about timing, what kind of week do we have? What kind of month do we have? We've got a new president coming in here in just a month or a little ...