The Campfire Trail: February 2025

January 30, 2025

Day 1,217 of the Adventure

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Tariffs are the talk of the country now that a new Trump administration has taken over the political reigns in the United States. Most of the talk is involving the positive or negative effects of tariffs. To be sure, tariffs have consequences. On the positive side, they generally provide incentive to get foreign governments to take action on one or more of the following. 1) encourage them to level the playing field on trade deficits. 2) encourage them to alter various policies which can be almost anything, but in this case, most notably, reducing illegal crossing and trafficking of drugs on our boarders. Tariffs also can have an effect on encouraging companies producing goods in foreign countries to move their manufacturing into the U.S. to avoid tariffs. These are a few of the positive impacts. Likewise, the negative impacts are mostly associated with higher costs for buyers on those goods which have tariffs imposed upon them. No one denies the fact that this is an immediate effect. The results desired are largely to achieve a positive change of behavior of some degree. Tariffs become a hefty bargaining chip in the world of global commerce and political policy.

I tend to believe that if enough pressure is applied, a compromise will be found that allows both sides to successfully function within the new "trade dynamic". Meanwhile, the fears of many will be focused on the higher prices potentially created by a newly imposed tariff. Some of the things to think about with that are; 1) products from non-tariff sources would likely remain the same. 2) American manufacturing can potentially receive a boost in productivity, 3) Finally, prices on some things may, indeed, go higher. All of it is unknown at the time and we'll be in a bit of a waiting mode to see how it plays out.

One thing for certain is that anything we do as individuals to offset the impact of potentially higher prices should be in the forefront of our minds and our plans. Obviously, if our favorite automobile's price goes up by 30%, we can't just simply decide we're going to build our own automobile. However, we can begin to make a difference in other areas of our lives. Food production and preservation is one of those areas. It's something we've been sounding the alarm over for a couple of years now concerning the high costs of everything because of inflation. Tariff induced price increases are no different. Inflation is due to our inability to contain spending at a government level. Tariff related prices are due to the "chess-game" of attempting to influence foreign governments to change behavior. The net result of either can certainly be higher prices. As individuals, there is little we can do to change either of these factors. However, also as individuals, there's much we can do personally to mitigate the effects of these behemoth economic forces.

Self-Sufficiency is my "Go-To" solution. "Self-Sufficiency" is the antithesis of "Dependency". As a whole, I believe that we, as a nation, culture and even individual, have become far too reliant and dependent upon others, specifically, our government for our well-being. If I could say that last sentence with triple capitals and fireworks, I would, and it still wouldn't be enough.

In conclusion, what do we do to prepare ourselves for an additional bump in prices due to some tariffs? Focus a renewed effort on all things pertaining to self-sufficiency! Will it help? I'd say anything that's done to improve self-sufficiency will help. Can it hurt? More self-sufficiency certainly can't hurt!

Carry On

Adventure Quote: “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” ― Abraham Lincoln

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