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by Free Market Duck

Petition of the Electric Light Bulb Manufacturers
Feb 1, 2009

Washington, DC – Concerning:  All Electric Light Bulb Manufacturers, Tungsten Miners, Flashlight Producers, Battery Manufacturers, Neon Lamp Companies, Municipal Street Lamp Repairmen, Safety Match Makers, Cigarette Lighter Factories, Sidewalk Candle Vendors, all commerce affiliated with the production of light, the U.S. Department of Commerce, new President of The United States Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Harry Reid, and the very esteemed Members of the Congress of the United States.

Dear Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid:

   As you ponder your $819 Billion Stimulus package to save America with Made in the USA only products, I wish to bring to your attention the “dumping” on our domestic market of a relatively cheap foreign product -- not Made in the USA -- which is adversely affecting the economy of our great free nation, especially those industries whose concern is the production of light.

   This product is being transported across our borders right under our very noses practically every single night of the year, anytime from 5 pm to 9 pm until daybreak, depending on the season and the cloudiness of our skies.  Our domestic light bulb industry is simply being destroyed by the unfair competition of this foreign product, which, I might add, is not only being swiftly smuggled past our alert Government customs officials but whose current market price is ZERO!  Really now, how can our domestic light bulb industry possibly compete against a foreign product that costs the consumer absolutely nothing?

   That cheap foreign import from which we need your protection under the Made in the USA only Section of your new $819 Billion Stimulus package, dear Nancy & Harry, is none other than moonlight!

   I beg of you, dear Nancy & Harry, to refrain from spilling your tears of laughter and ridicule all over and wrinkling this, my serious proposal, long enough to consider levying an import tariff against moonlight so as to make it more competitive with our domestic production of light.  Obviously, I am only asking the Government to pursue its already established policy of artificially raising the price of what used to be relatively inexpensive foreign imports in order to force the consumer to spend more money for domestic products and thereby enrich the economy.

   I fail to be convinced by any arguments that you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack, might put forth that my request to levy an import tariff on this “dumping” of cheap foreign light differs to any measurable extent from the import tariffs already levied on virtually thousands of other cheap foreign imports such as French wines, Australian beef, Italian shoes, and Japanese automobiles, only to mention a few.  I ask you, how much more foreign can you get than the Moon?  And how much cheaper can you get than zero?

   Let me quickly dispense with the only argument that has ever been put forth by our private central bankers, the Federal Reserve, against my proposal.

   Briefly, it goes something like this:  the Feds say that the Government levies import tariffs not only to enrich the domestic economy but also to prevent the outflow to foreign nations of our Federal Reserve Notes – our Pulp Fiction Dollars – that are used as a medium of economic exchange.  They further state that a huge Dollar outflow would seriously wreck our economy, with us receiving other nation’s cookies while they receive our Pulp Fiction Federal Reserve Notes.  Then, the Feds draw the inevitable conclusion that our Government needn’t levy any tariff on free moonlight since the Moon doesn’t drain our Federal Reserve Notes.  A brilliant observation but we who propose a tariff on cheap foreign moonlight vigorously reply, “Oh baloney, you Dinkleberries!” – merely a term of endearment, my friends – because for the Government to levy import tariffs on the premise that it worries about an outflow of our non-backed paper money is like worrying about who is getting the best of a deal when you give inedible paper to foreigners in exchange for receiving the fruits of their labors such as food, clothing, automobiles, shoes, computers and other products and services.

   Allow me to remind you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, that those foreign nations who are holding our Pulp Fiction Dollars are the only ones who have to worry since they must eventually turn this medium of economic exchange in to us for our goods and services – even if roundabout through other nations – in order to complete our mutually agreed upon exchange.  Otherwise, we would be the gainers, enjoying the products they traded to us, while they would be the losers, holding only our paper money which is not very good to eat, drink, wear, or consume in too many other ways, either.

   So that leaves me – and you, too, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe – with only my initially correct reasoning that import tariffs on cheap foreign products – not Made in the USA – tend to greatly enrich a nation by forcing the domestic consumers to pay higher prices for domestic goods and thereby boost domestic industry.  And so I ask again:  from what cheaper and more foreign product can the Government protect our economy than moonlight?

   By increasing the cost for every American consumer who attempts to see freely by the light of the Moon, he will find that it would behoove him to use a cheaper form of domestic light such as an American candle, a U.S. flashlight, a Yankee Doodle Dandy domestic electric light bulb, a North American safety match, or perhaps a BIC cigarette lighter.  As the producers of these and other forms of domestic light experience a large demand for their products, they will tool up for more production and employ more workers to handle the increase.  Then, all affiliated industry and commerce such as tungsten mining, glass molding, transportation, and prostitutes using flashlights in the back seat of a Ford SUV will experience a boom as the light-producing industries expand to meet the demand.

   As the economy prospers, the Government can then justifiably implement Deficit Farming, Guaranteed Annual Band-Aids, Federal Kite Flying, and Income Taxes on individuals, corporations, and anything that walks, breathes, or burps.  And, the Feds can print up trillions of Pulp Fiction Dollars out of thin air in order to provide the nation with more needed Government services such as Federal Highways, Federal Post Offices, Federal Railroads, Federal Child Care Centers, Federal Health Care, Federal Food Stamps, and Federal Buses to equalize Federal Public Education by trucking our federal children all over to discover socialist America.  Eventually, unemployment will be wiped out completely and, in short, our entire economy will be boosted by this clever stimulus to domestic production.

   However, it would be highly presumptuous of us to assume that Mother Nature and the Moon have conspired to economically bankrupt our great free nation.  That’s why I suspect the Chinese have beat us to a landing on the Sun – which they could have accomplished not in the extreme heat of the daytime but rather in the cool hours of the night – and have had a hand in directing this free influx of moonlight into our great free nation to bankrupt us.  As you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, are well aware of, moonlight originally emanates from the Sun and can easily be bounced off such large objects as the Moon and thus reflected to Earth.

   If you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, would, in addition to levying a tariff on moonlight, install a network of huge mirrors – creating even more jobs and, therefore, lowering the unemployment in our great free nation – to reflect this competitive light back off the Moon and right back into the faces of those tricky foreigners on the sun who are attempting to force us into economic ruin, we might possibly catch them with their sunglasses off or, at least, no sun tan lotion and make things quite hot for them up there.

   Surely you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, would agree with me, in view of all the protective Government tariffs currently in force, that those fantastically ridiculous advocates of free trade, the pesky Free Market Capitalists, have no humanitarian concern whatsoever for our wonderfully patriotic Electric Light Bulb Manufacturers – and our Zippo cigarette lighter workers, not to mention the Safety Match laborers of America --  when they, the Free Market Capitalists, make loud noises about how the consumers would have more money left over to spend in the economy and would have thereby freely boosted all production and provided employment, both domestic and foreign, if they were not forced to purchase artificially more expensive domestic products by the Government’s protective tariffs.

   Let us all laugh together, dear Nancy & Harry, ha-ha at the following simplistic analysis by those silly Free Market Capitalists.  They claim that:

1.    The international division of labor in accordance with the natural distribution of resources on the globe is the cheapest, most efficient method of economic organization.

2.    The tariff increase in spending for domestic light nearly equals – minus the tariff bureaucracy and costs of capital dislocation – the decrease in the amount of money left in the pockets of the consumers had there been no tariff, which money, without a tariff, they would then have spent on other goods in the economy.

3.    Therefore, the increase in production and employment in the Government-protected domestic light industry exactly equals, for all means and purposes, the decrease in the production and employment in those other industries which would have received the money now going to the light industry.

4.    The total cost to the consumer for all economic goods has been made more expensive by the Government’s tariffs on foreign imports.

5.    The domestic light industry is granted a virtually monopoly by the Government’s tariffs.

6.    Now, since supply is restricted, monopoly prices can be charged by the monopolized light industry, not only with complete impunity but with the actual sanction of the Government.

   But what are mountains and oceans intended to be, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, if not natural boundary lines designed by Mother Nature to coincide with your economic trade barriers?  Obviously, the consumers in our great land of freedom would go broke if the benevolent Government allowed them to receive free – or at least much cheaper than the domestic cost – automobiles, TVs, food, machinery, furniture, shoes, computers and ad infinitum from foreign – not Made in the USA – lands.  Witness, for example, dear Nancy & Harry, how little children who receive free gifts at Christmas end up impoverished while that foreigner from the North Pole who provided them with the free goodies, Santa Claus, grows filthy rich!  I suspect that in the not too distant future the Government will have to levy an import tariff on Santa Claus’ huge “dumping” of free gifts from the foreign North Pole, too.

  In closing, I would point to France, which as far back as 1820, implemented Monsieur Bastiat’s Petition of the Candle Makers to protect their economy from the huge flood of free sunlight that was unfairly competing against their candle makers and thereby destroying all affiliated commerce and industry.  You would immediately see, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, that my proposal to tax moonlight – a logical extension of the Government’s contemporary policy of levying tariffs on cheap foreign imports in order to boost, by protection, our domestic economy – would create the same effect on our economy as Monsieur Bastiat’s proposal against sunlight had on France’s economy in the 1800s:  three lovely revolutions.  And so I ask that you, dear Nancy & Harry & Barack & Joe, not only enact my proposal to protect our domestic economy from free moonlight during the night, but also Monsieur Bastiat’s proposal to protect the economy from free sunlight in the daytime.

   What more could you and the very esteemed members of the Congress of the United States, offer America’s consumers than 24-hour protection from the cheap foreign importation of light not Made in the USA?

Cordially,

Your Humble Servant,
Free Market Duck

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