I noticed that we don’t see Garcia’s face clearly. All the images are from the side.
There are some perspective issues when they are shaking hands.
Finally, they went from, “No, you can’t see him.” With the Senator getting stopped by the military 2 miles from the prison, to sitting and having drinks in a nice location.
This looks faked to me. If not the images themselves, then in the setup.
The NPCs will have their marching orders by now. Yesterday it was “Trump is ignoring a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling that he return Garcia”, today it will be “Trump held in contempt of court.”
Since I’m writing this yesterday, we’ll see how good I am at predicting the NPCs.
We need to start on March 15, 2025. The Trump signed an EO designating TDA and MS-13 as terrorist organizations and ordered their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. Five TDA members filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus.
If the writ is granted by the court, the named plaintiffs must be presented to the court, in person, in corpus (body)
That same day, the court granted a TRO forbidding the removal of the named TDA members. The court claims that the plaintiffs (bad guys) have satisfied the four factors governing the issuance of preliminary relief.
The court didn’t bother to show what those arguments are, nor did the court bother to write an opinion to accompany the order. It is reasonable for the TRO to be granted, the order entered, and then later an opinion entered into the record.
The government immediately filed an appeal to the D.C. Circuit.
Later that same day, the 15th, the court decided to extend the TRO to all noncitizens of the in U.S. custody who are subject to removal via the AEA.
The government then appealed the class certification, extending the TRO to all terrorists in U.S. custody.
Lots of back and forth took place, then on the 28th, the court extended the TRO until April 12th. Thus putting a one-month delay on deporting terrorists.
The same day, the government filed an application with the Supreme Court to vacate the orders of the inferior district court.
The first thing to note is that what the district court was a TRO the Supreme Court construed as appealable injunctions. The D.C. Circuit Court has taken all TROs at face value. I.e., not appealable.
The Supreme Court then vacated the TROs on the 7th of April.
As is normal in such situations, the Supreme Court ruled on the narrow question of venue. And that venue is NOT the district court of D.C.
I’m tired of reading this rogue inferior court judge yap. So I’ll wrap it up for y’ll.
The plaintiffs and the court were attempting to stop the Article II executive branch from performing its Constitutional duties and responsibilities.
The court issued a TRO even though the court did not have the jurisdiction to do so nor had they properly analyzed the Winter Factors as applied to this case.
The problem for the government is that judicial orders, in general, must be obeyed. Even if the court issued them erroneously and without proper authority to do so.
The administration learned their lesson. They are no immediately filing appeals when there are tight deadlines. Even an administrative stay gets them out of the contempt trap.
In this case, there was no deadline. The deadline was “now”. Since the government didn’t do what the court told them to do, they can be held in contempt.
Even though the Supreme Court later vacated the self-styled TRO.
This is just lawfare in a different way.
Our court system is built around a false or better said, forced, politeness. This means that words have meaning in the context of the Supreme Court that aren’t obvious outside of those that watch The Court.
The Education Industry also does this. When my children were in kindergarten, I had a meeting with their teachers. The teacher said something to the effect of, “Your son is not sharing with his friends.”
I was surprised at this, to say the least. Then I found out that the school had changed the definition of “friend”.
It seems they had noticed that children treat their friends differently and often times better than those that are not friends. So the school changed the definition of “friend” to mean any classmate or student the child interacts with.
The court is filled with this sort of rhetoric, using polite words of friends when it is more likely that somebody wants to rip their lying opponent’s throat out.
This is a polite way of saying that the state has made the claim that Garcia is a member of MS-13 but that the Supreme Court doesn’t accept it as proven.
Fact: An Immigration Judge (Article II Judge), found that Garcia was a member of MS-13.
This is also polite court speak for said but not proven.
Fact: Garcia is charged with a crime, he is an illegal alien. He has a removal order put in place under Biden.
This is Court speak for, “You were wrong. We are returning it to you to fix.” The word “requires” is an order. It is telling the inferior court judge that he MUST correct their error.
“Clarification” means that the inferior court said something wrong.
With normal people, this is the equivalent of “I believe you are mistaken” when you want to say, “What you said is wrong. And the entire room is dumber for having had to listen to it.”
“…unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority” is court talk for something like. “Either you meant what you said which is outside your authority, OR you meant something else. You must have meant something else. Make it clear you didn’t mean what you said.”
This is as strong of language that I’ve read in a SCOTUS opinion.
Sometimes, I will be in a discussion with somebody, and they will say something insulting or rude to me. I will respond, “Did you intend to call me ignorant/a lier/stupid/racist?” If I’m saying this, I’m pretty darn sure they said it intentionally. This gives them an opportunity to walk it back without me forcing the issue.
The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order was clear. The judge was ordering the US government to put Garcia in front of the Judge by midnight. And that judge didn’t care what the government had to do to accomplish his order.
“…with due regard”, “deference”, and “conduct of foreign affairs.” are all code. “Due regard” is SCOTUS telling the inferior courts that the Executive branch is co-equal with the legislative and judicial branch. “Deference” means that the executive branch is responsible for the executive branch, not the courts.
The last part, “conduct of foreign affairs,” means that this is a limited ruling. If it has to do with foreign affairs, the executive branch is responsible, not the judicial or legislative branches. This also means that if it is not “foreign affairs”, the court might have the authority to step in, after giving due regard and deference.
There are many situations where the setting demands a level of decorum, of the trappings of respect. In oral arguments before the Supreme Court, it is proper to refer to the opposing council as “my friend.” To call congress critters “honorable”.
Unfortunately, there are those in the business of selling panic know that most people will not understand forced respect, instead they will latch on to the thing that is panic worthy, or which is what they want to hear.
The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated
sounds like it is a loss for the administration. It is not. The stay issued by the Chief Justice did what it was supposed to do. It protected the administration from charges of contempt.
The differences between effectuate and facilitate is lost on the masses. The number of people who believe that the administration was ordered to return Garcia to the United States is nearly unbelievable.
They want to believe that Trump is breaking the law.
As Allyson says, “read the bill”. Unfortunately, I believe that the plain text of Supreme Court opinions is beyond the comprehension of most people suffering from TDS.
While scrolling through X, looking for something to write about, I stumbled on a posting regarding Trump’s annual physical and its results.
/Trump’s 2025 Annual Physical Results
The post and almost all the comments are of the “It’s a fake!” or “They’re lying!”
His temperature is normal. That can’t be because it is just an average. They lied.
He scored 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. This is a lie, everybody has seen he is cognitively impaired.
We know his height and weight are BS.
His resting heart beat is too good. It must be a lie.
He was tested on the 11th of April, but they didn’t release the results until the 13th. This proves it is a lie. They wanted time to fabricate the results.
Or my favorite, they noted the scar on his right ear but not the scars from multiple failed hair transplants. Since the assassination attempt was fake, this proves the medical report is fake as well.
Trump got a clean bill of health, since he isn’t showing any issues, it must be wrong.
These people are sick in the head. They just want him, and us, dead.
P.S. My favorite bit of TDS this week was a bunch of people looking for information about the kid that attempted to assassinate Trump. Since the monster was killed and the attempt was faked, this is another indicator that Trump faked the assassination attempt.
In the best of all worlds, the states would look at the Constitution, look at their laws, and gut their regulations until every last regulation aligned with our Constitution.
This is not the best of all worlds. There are too many politicians who are agenda-driven. There are too many courts that are agenda-driven. The agenda is more important than the Constitution or The People.
This means that judges who have an agenda will look for ways to manipulate case law or the lack of case law.
Does the Second Amendment apply to the states? We don’t think so. The Supreme Court never said that it does, so our opinion is the correct opinion.
Because our legal system is built on common law, the law must apply to everyone equally. Once a decision has been made based on a particular line of reasoning, other, similar decisions should have the same result.
In rogue courts, this will ratchet in only one direction. If the case law favors The People but at odds with the court’s agenda, the case law won’t apply. If the case law favors the court’s agenda, then it will apply.
One of the lawyers I follow or use to follow puts it as, “Congress writes the bill, the President makes it law, the Courts decide what it means.”
It doesn’t matter what the intentions of Congress and the Executive branch might be when drafting and creating law, it only matters how the Courts interpret the law.
There are 600+ Federal District Court Judges. Each of them has an opinion about what the law means. Some of them attempt to respect, to adhere to the Constitution, some of them do not. Regardless, because there are so many, there will be differences in opinion.
To bring the inferior courts into agreement, each district court reports to a circuit court. The circuit courts will accept cases for review and publish opinions, which the inferior district courts must follow.
This brings the district courts into alignment within a circuit. Unfortunately, the inferior circuit courts are often agenda-driven. This means that the circuits will split on agenda differences. The Fifth Circuit court is more likely to find for The People, for The Constitution. The Ninth Circuit is more likely to find for the state, against The People.
When the circuits split, or if the matter is of importance to the Supreme Court, they might agree to hear a case. When the Supreme Court issues their Opinion, the inferior courts should follow instructions the Supreme Court issues.
A court case starts by a person filing a suit. In a criminal case, this is the state, as represented by the prosecutor. The case is filed against someone. Remember that corporations are legally people. I’m going to ignore the criminal side, as I’m just not interested in that side, at this time.
The person opening the suit is the plaintiff. The other party is the defendant. The plaintiff will state a harm and request relief from the harm. The court must be able to grant that relief.
Let’s consider a common situation, a divorced man has been ordered to pay child support. He works to better himself and finds himself promoted or working in a better paying job. His ex-wife can file suit to have the child support increased.
She will allege that he is making more money, part of which should be going to his children.
There is alleged harm, he is shorting his children. The court can remedy the situation by ordering him to pay more in child support. The court grants her the relief she was seeking
Turn it around, a divorced man goes to pick up his children. His ex-wife refuses to hand them over for visitation. It is a Friday, the courts are closed, he goes home without his children.
On Monday, he attempts to file a suit. He alleges that his ex-wife denied him his visitation rights. He asks that he get the weekend with his children.
There is no way for the court to give that weekend back. It is gone. It is not a case for the courts. There is no relief the court can grant to fix the harm that was done.
There must be standing and an active conflict for the courts to act.
The suit makes allegations. If the allegations are about the law, the plaintiffs can request summary judgment. This means that the case can be decided by the courts without requiring facts/evidence be provided.
If there is a need for evidence to be collected, that requires fact finding.
Consider these two suits, 1) The plaintiffs file suit asking for a summary judgment finding that requiring permits to carry a firearm is unconstitutional. 2) The plaintiffs file suite asking for an injunction forcing the sheriff’s department to issue permits to carry in a timely fashion.
In the first case, there is no evidence or facts to be found. It is a matter of law. Per case law, when a constitutional challenge is made, the plaintiff needs to show that the proposed conduct implicates the plain text of The Constitution. Once the plaintiffs have shown that implication, the burden shifts to the state to prove the modern regulation is inline with this Nation’s historical tradition of regulation.
Note that this language is similar to what we saw in Bruen. That is because Bruen didn’t invent anything new. This has been the standard for at least a hundred years.
In the second case, the plaintiffs will need to prove that the sheriff’s department is not issuing permits in a timely fashion.
The steps of the case:
Until the case has reached step 11, Summary Judgment granted or denied, the case is in an interlocutory state.
When a case is filed, “bad things” could be happening, which needs to be stopped immediately.
A person gets notice they are to be evicted the following day. They request a TRO to stop the eviction.
An alien is detained and will be deported. Their lawyer files a suit to stop the deportation and requests a TRO to stop the alien from being removed from the local jurisdiction.
A TRO lasts until a preliminary injunction is issued or denied. They are supposed to only a short period of time. If it is an urgent matter, then the preliminary injunction should be briefed and heard in a short period of time. A week, maybe two should be the limit of a TRO.
IN DECIDING AN APPLICATION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTIONunder Rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, courts in the Ninth Circuit look to the following factors:
Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, 586 F.3d 1109, 1127 (9th Cir. 2009)
To determine whether to issue a TRO, the courts in the Ninth Circuit apply the same analysis used to evaluate a motion for preliminary injunction. McCarthy v. Servis One, Inc., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32622, at *9 –10 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 7, 2017).
A party seeking a preliminary injunction in the Ninth Circuit must meet one of two variants of the same standard. First, a party can show that he or she is likely to succeed on the merits, that he or she is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his or her favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest. Alliance For The Wild Rockies v. Pena, 865 F.3d 1211, 1217 (9th Cir. 2017). Alternatively, under the sliding scale variant of the standard, if a plaintiff can only show that there are serious questions going to the merits —a lesser showing than likelihood of success on the merits —then a preliminary injunction may still issue if the balance of hardships tips sharply in the plaintiff ’s favor, and the other two factors are satisfied. Alliance For The Wild Rockies v. Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127, 1135 (9th Cir. 2011).
These two alternatives represent extremes of a single continuum rather than two separate tests. Immigrant Assistant Project Los Angeles County Fed ’n of Labor v. INS, 306 F.3d 842, 873 (9th Cir. 2002).
We see one of the issues with rogue courts, such as the Ninth. The Supreme Court has stated that TROs, Preliminary Injunctions, and stays are extraordinary actions which require the Winter Factors be used. Here, the Ninth has said that an inferior, district court, can use the Winter Factors, or use a sliding scale.
When using a sliding scale, the inferior court is supposed to use the “balance of hardships”. Balance of hardships is not part of the Winter Factors. This gives courts in the Ninth Circuit to decide that anything is a hardship, which allows them to grant TROs, Preliminary Injunctions, and Stays when the party requesting them hasn’t shown a likelihood of success on the merits.
For a preliminary injunction, the court needs the plaintiffs and defendants to file briefs to demonstrate why the preliminary injunction should be granted or denied. The plaintiff files their motion for a preliminary injunction. The defendant files their response. The plaintiff then files a reply to the response.
If the court requires more, they will request more. If defendants feel they need to reply to the reply, they ask permission of the court to do so.
The court then schedules a hearing. The parties can meet independently of the hearing. They can file a joint motion on what they think the preliminary injunction should be. The plaintiffs can file a motion suggesting what the wording of the preliminary injunction should be. The defendants might file a “we don’t think it should be granted, but if it is, this is what the wording should be.”
After the hearing, the court will issue their order granting, denying or granting in part and denying in part the requested preliminary injunction.
The process of getting a preliminary injunction is adversarial. The process of getting a TRO is not.
If a preliminary injunction is granted, that injunction will be in place until final judgment is issued.
After the preliminary injunction is granted (or not), the parties start filing their arguments, briefs, motions. Amicus Curiae can file briefs as well.
During this process, the parties will meet, discuss what can and cannot be agreed to between them. Anytime an agreement is reached between the parties, a motion if filed with the court to get the court’s approval.
There will be status reports and hearings to make sure everybody is on track to have everything filed on time.
Finally, there will be arguments made in court.
After the arguments have been made, the court will make their decision and issue their final judgment.
When the final judgment is given, the case is no longer in an interlocutory state, at the district level.
Normally, a TRO cannot be appealed. The thinking is that since it lasts such a short time, by the time the superior court has heard the arguments, the TRO should have expired.
Since a TRO is supposed to maintain the status quo, there should be nothing in a TRO that cannot be undone, with a proper application of money.
If a party appeals a TRO or the denial of a TRO, the superior court should apply the Winter Factors and there must be an extraordinary reason for the intervention.
To have the Supreme Court hear an appeal regarding a TRO is almost unheard of. To have them action a TRO is even rarer.
The normal method that is used to stop a TRO with a deadline is to grant an administrative stay long enough for the deadline to pass. This gives the defendant time to respond without facing contempt charges.
Again, TROs normal cannot be appealed.
A Preliminary Injunction can be appealed. Since a Preliminary Injunction lasts for the duration of the case, a “bad” Preliminary Injunction can cause immense damage.
It is also the case that a Preliminary Injunction should not normally grant the relief sought in final judgment. If what you are asking for in final judgment is for the homeowner to stop hoarding rainwater and the preliminary injunction requires the rainwater to be distributed to all their neighbors, there is no way to make the homeowner whole when the dry season hits.
The Preliminary Injunction might require the homeowner to retain that rainwater, not using it nor releasing it.
The Preliminary Injunction can be appealed. From the District Court it is appealed to the Circuit Court. From there it could be appealed to the Supreme Court.
After the final judgment is issued, the case at the District Level is done. The case is no longer in an interlocutory state.
Findings of fact cannot be appealed. Thus, if the District Court finds that the sheriff is taking 18 months on average to issue a permit to carry, the sheriff can appeal that finding of fact.
They can appeal the procedure and rules used to make the determination. For example, the sheriff submitted documentation showing that 10,000 permits were granted within 30 days, but the district court refused to accept the documentation because the staples were in the wrong place.
There must be an active controversy for a court to intervene. If there is no active controversy, the case is moot.
A criminal on death row is appealing his sentence. He dies of a heart attack. There is no longer a controversy, the case is moot.
There are exceptions for this. The most common was abortion cases. Since a pregnancy lasts 9 months and most court cases take years, there is no possibility for an abortion case to be heard at the appeals level before the woman is no longer pregnant.
The rogue inferior courts have been throwing out Second Amendment challenges from 18 year-olds because they age out. To resolve this, their needs to be an organization involved representing all members under 21. As the individual plaintiffs age out, the organization adds new 18-year-old plaintiffs.
The superior court can grant stays and injunctions. These are temporary in nature. They are designed to change the state of preliminary injunctions or final judgments.
If the superior court finds that the inferior court got it wrong, they can vacate the lower court’s judgment. Normally, the case is then remanded (returned) to the inferior court for them to correct whatever it was they did wrong.
In our example, the inferior district court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the homeowner from using the collected rainwater or from wasting it. The appeals court can stay that injunction, allowing the homeowner to use the rainwater while waiting for the final judgment.
In the same way, if the inferior district court did not issue an injunction, the plaintiffs (not the homeowner) could appeal and the appeals court could issue an injunction, stopping the homeowner from using or destroying the rainwater.
The Supreme Court produces thousands of words per day per justice. They hear oral arguments. They read 10s of thousands of words in filings in cases.
Unlike myself, they need to read everything. I normally skip the boring stuff or the state’s BS. It isn’t worth my time.
This means they hear about 70 cases per term. This is in addition to making a few dozen to a few hundred orders per week.
This last Monday, they issued orders in 78 cases.
Anything the Supreme Court does or says becomes precedent. If they were to grant cert to cases in an interlocutory state, the number of requests for cert would skyrocket. They already get in excess of 7000 petitions for cert every term.
It is a big deal, therefore, when the Supreme Court grants cert on a case that is in an interlocutory state.
They don’t normally hear requests for stays or injunctions from cases in an interlocutory state.
The fact that they have made statements in a few Second Amendment challenges that were at the TRO or Preliminary Injunction state is astonishing.
The Second Amendment community needs to fight to a final judgment as quickly as possible. If we ask for a TRO, and it isn’t granted, that was a waste of our resources. If it is granted, the state will appeal to the circuit courts, where it will be stayed. The circuit court can then delay the case for many months.
The Supreme Court will not step in, while a case is just starting
If we ask for a preliminary injunction, either we are denied, in which case it just cost us resources and time, or we are granted the injunction which will be appealed, and the entire case is again delayed.
We want the case completed at the district level as quickly as possible. If we win, the state will appeal, but now we are on the way to the Supreme Court. If we lose, we appeal, we are still on our way to the Supreme Court.
The Fort is getting ready for the 2025 season. Allyson is up there for the woman’s weekend. She is incredibly excited.
Why?
Because this will be the first event she has gone to in years when she isn’t presenting/teaching. Her goal? To learn how to make a pie crust.
Like many events, there is an unload time. You are allowed to drive on site to unload your gear, and then you are to get your vehicle off site as soon as you can.
It felt like coming home. We stopped to talk to boss lady, then drove around to the Fort to unload. Bill saw us drive up and waved us inside.
It felt good to be recognized, to be welcomed.
There was “man bonding”, Bill was on his way to fix something, he had a crowbar in hand and made a pretend swing at the windshield. It felt welcoming. As I said, a coming home.
Allyson and I got out of the truck. She started unloading for her stay, I went to help Bill.
We worked as a team. I got to drive the idiot stick for a bit. We were able to move a large, heavy, ramp out of the way, clear up the damage a woodchuck had done, and get an aluminum ramp in place for the weekend.
It was good. It made me happy. The Fort is a home away from home.
The one thing that struck me as humorous was that we were going to use some 2x4s. They needed to be cut to size. Bill was in the jointery first. When I got there, I was expecting him to be using one of the handsaws.
Nope, he had a circular saw, making quick work of the task.
In the past 20 years of watching congress critters make huge amounts of money with some of the luckiest stock moves, it is refreshing to have some of them talking about limiting insider trading.
And all the normal NPCs are all yapping about wanting to pass a bill to stop themselves from trading individual stocks.
The bill, as pitched by the NPCs, is unlikely to actually accomplish anything, still it makes me smile to see them doing this because they are virtue signaling.
We won, again.
These inferior rogue courts lose and the media plays it up as a win.
The short of it, the state (not bad guys) transferred Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the El Salvador “super max”. Garcia was under a court order to be kept in the United States.
Garcia is a bad person. The state says he is a member of MS-18, he claims he is not. He does not appear to have a criminal record outside of being here illegally. He was detained under the Biden Puppet administration.
His transfer was a mistake. The state acknowledges this.
The District Judge issued another of those magic TROs. He overstepped his Article III power when he ordered the Government to facilitate and effectuate the return of [Garcia] to the United States by no later than 11:59PM on Monday, April 7.
To understand this win, it is necessary to understand the power of a court. When a court gives an order, it must be followed or the court can find you in contempt. Being in contempt can cause people to be arrested.
In this particular case, I believe it is Kristi Noem who would have been held in contempt.
The TRO uses two different terms with different legal meanings. The first is to “facilitate”. This is telling the Government to work with El Salvador to get Garcia back. It could be the Government paying money, it could be other diplomatic pressure, or it could be a simple “please give him back.”
The difficulty the Government has is that Garcia is a member of MS-13. Under El Salvador law, this means he is a terrorist. As a terrorist in El Salvador, he will be detained in their super max under their laws.
Under the facilitate requirement, as long as the Government was working to get Garcia returned to the United States, they were within the boundaries of the TRO.
The second term, “effectuate” is different. This is a get-it-done requirement. This requires that Garcia be back in the United States before midnight on the 7th. If the Government does not have Garcia back in the United States by that deadline, they will be in contempt.
Whatever the full reasons might be for the state not wanting Garcia back, it is unreasonable to expect the state to negotiate the return of Garcia and to have him back in the states within the deadline given by the court.
Chief Justice Roberts quashed this TRO without committing the Court. He issued an administrative stay. Because that stay took the case past the midnight deadline, there was no more threat of contempt.
Having made it past the deadline, the Court then issued an order today.
Yep, the district court was just slapped down for overreaching its power.
The government is no longer required to return Garcia, they are required to work towards getting him back. Meanwhile, they can continue the court case at the district level, which might end with Garcia staying in El Salvador.
The government is only required to share, what it can, about the steps they are taking to facilitate the return of Garcia.
“We’ve scheduled a meeting with the representative of El Salvador.” Which is 4 weeks from now. They can slow walk this thing.
Just a short follow up. In one day the portfolio I am following recovered about 530%.
That is to say, the reported loss over the last 6 days has gone from 3.58% yesterday to 0.19% today.
Just stay the course and things will get better.
If you are invested in the market, don’t panic. As CBMTTek pointed out, February 2024 the S&P 500 was doing just fine, at the same level. The media wasn’t screaming about the economy tanking.
He’s correct. The amount of panic the media projects is tempered by which party is in control.
A 0.001% drop in the market when Trump does something is cause to panic, which causes the sheep to sell, causing the market to drop. A 1.000% drop in the market when a Dem is in office creates a cricket like ambiance. And saying anything makes you a conspiracy theorist.
Trump has put multiple tariffs into place. These tariffs cause changes in supply chains and in the costs to produce certain goods.
Every product produced requires raw goods, tooling, work space, and skills to create.
Consider a simple BLT. The raw goods are bacon, bacon, bacon, lettuce, tomato, bread, mayo. Having all of those raw goods does not a BLT make.
You have to have the correct tooling. The tooling here is a way of cooking the bacon, such as a grill top, cutting tomatoes, cutting bread, spreading the mayo.
Once the sandwich is produced, it has to be packaged for delivery. That requires still more raw goods.
When you sell that sandwich, you include the cost of the raw materials that go into it, you include the cost of the packaging, you include the cost of the tools, the building you used, and you include the cost of labor. You then need to include the cost the government imposes on you.
The cost of your raw goods includes the price you pay for the goods, the cost the government imposes on those goods, such as tariffs and VAT, and the cost of transporting the raw goods to your location.
Once you have all those costs, you add profit to come up with the price you will charge your customers.
Now, let’s change the product, instead of creating a sandwich, you are creating a gear. Your raw goods are iron and pattern making materials. You will use your tools to convert pattern making materials into patterns. You will then use those patterns to cast gear blanks. You will then turn those gear blanks into finished gears by applying different tools.
You have converted raw materials, with knowledge, skill and labor, into a finished product, a gear.
That gear is sold at a price which is profitable to you. That gear is likely a raw material for some other business.
Tariffs add to the cost of anything imported into a country that imposes imports. Imports are decided on the origin country or the country of manufacture.
Consider a car that is manufactured in Detroit. If that car includes raw materials that are imported from other countries, those materials that have tariffs applied will cost more.
There are no “complexities” to this. The “PANIC!” people want you to think there are, that’s not true. Every business keeps track of the cost of raw materials. If they don’t know the costs, they can’t set prices. It doesn’t matter if Ford, Canada produces the part or Ford, Flynt creates the part. There is a cost that is paid to have that part in the Ford, Detroit plant to put into a new car.
In a well-functioning business, they are always looking at the cost of raw materials. The cost of raw materials includes the cost of taxes (tariffs) and transportation.
It also includes the cost of bad materials. If you are paying a $1.00 for a widget and there is a 10% failure rate, that means you are paying $1.10 for each working part. If somebody else has the same widget with a cost (price + extra costs) of $1.05 and a failure rate of 0.1% that means they are only scrapping 1 in 1000 widgets.
In this case, it is actually cheaper to buy the “more expensive” widget.
Included in the cost calculations are longer-term issues. If the ball bearings you purchase are not properly heat treated, and you assemble them into a high-precision roller bearing which then fails in a million dollar engine, there is a heck of a lot more costs involved.
We know that people will change their purchasing habits when the cost of needed goods goes up. We saw this when Americans switched from steak to ground beef as their primary meat. Look at the CPI for food, you’ll see that in the past it had steak on it, today it has ground beef.
Because the cost of goods goes up, people will look for better prices. If that search leads to a local business, so much the better.
Unfortunately, local business might not be set up to cope with a large influx of new business. This leads to shortages.
In a market-driven economy, this leads to people consumers offering more or producers charging more. This is called a “signal”.
Because this signal exists, asking for more of that product, producers will attempt to create more product. This could be as simple as turning on an extra machine or as complex as standing up an entirely new production plant.
When this is going on, “the market” will respond. The market responds by buying or selling ownership in different companies. If a company that used to clear $2,000,000 per year is now projected to clear $4,000,000 per year is likely to attract buyers. A company that is seeing their income drop is likely to attract sellers.
This causes market fluctuations.
Over the course of yesterday, the portfolio that I follow was up as much as 1% yet closed down 0.82% Since Trump announced the tariffs, the portfolio has lost 3.53%
On $100,000 that’s a $3,530 loss.
And it is meaningless. That portfolio will go up again.
The people who are screaming the loudest are the people with millions in the stock market. If that are looking at a $10,000,000 portfolio, a 3.53% drop is $353,000 “loss”. That is more than a 1/4 million dollars in just a few days.
But it only becomes a loss if they sell now. If they hold on to those securities and the price recovers or goes up, then they will “make money”. But again, that is only true if they actually sell the security to realize the profits they made.
There is no reason to panic. The sky is not falling. If anything, this might be a good time to look at putting money into the market. The trick is to buy when near the bottom of the sell-off.
The only reason I know this, is I did some research this last week. I am NOT the person you want to take financial advise from.
This case has had a long and torturous journey. We are not at the end of its travels.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied cert in this case. There was no statement issued in relation to this case.
Just “cert is denied”
That might sound like a horrible loss, it is not.
This case has not reached a final judgment at the district court yet.
On December 13, 2022, Judge Glenn Suddaby issued his decision and order. The state (bad guys) had filed a motion to reconsider the court’s preliminary injunction granted November 17, 2022.
The state then appealed to the Second Circuit court. The Second Circuit court stayed the injunction pending the outcome of the appeal. They issued their opinion against The People, finding that it was ok for the state of New York to ban the carrying of firearms almost everywhere.
The plaintiffs (good guys) appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Second Circuit Court’s ruling in light of Rahimi.
The Second Circuit heard oral arguments again. After a suitable delay, they said that they got it right the first time, even when considering Rahimi. The plaintiffs (still the good guys), filed a petition for writ of certiorari.
Friday, the Supreme Court justices held their Friday conference. Yesterday, they issued their order and simply denied cert.
This means that the Second Circuits stay of the case stays in place. The case is remanded back to the district court to finish the “fact finding” and then to await final judgment.
In other words, this case is still in an interlocutory state.
In my humble opinion, the Supreme Court declined to hear this case because it was in an interlocutory state and if they were to GVR the case, they knew the Second Circuit will get it wrong again. The Second Circuit is a rogue inferior court.
We still have Snope and Ocean State Tactical seeking cert.
I don’t see either conferenced yet, but that should be forthcoming soon.