The Tariffman's Toll
Chapter III:
Of Washing Machines, Woe, and the
Whims of Men
In Which the Spin Cycle Becomes Metaphor, and the Price of Cleanliness Rises
In a more sensible world, washing machines are humble things - neither political nor poetic.
They churn. They hum. They cleanse the sins from socks and the stains from supper.
But in the year of our distress, they became symbols.
Symbols of sovereignty.
Icons of industrial indignation.
And so the Tariffman declared:
“The washers shall be taxed, that our greatness may be
rinsed and restored!”
It began with bluster. It always begins with bluster.
A 20% tariff here, a 50% surcharge there. Foreign machines,
it was said, were invading American basements.
Never mind those domestic manufacturers relied upon global parts. Never mind
the quiet economists waving charts like lanterns in a gathering storm.
The decree came down. Loud, clumsy, and full of patriotic
detergent.
Act II: The Price Rises Like Suds
What followed was… predictable.
Prices surged. First for machines, then for dryers, then for parts, installation, and the poor souls who delivered them.
Retailers apologized. Consumers blinked. A family in Des
Moines reportedly held a funeral for their Whirlpool before embracing the
laundromat.
Even the domestic producers, supposedly blessed by the
intervention, found their costs rising with the imported screws and steel now
caught in the wider crossfire.
Victory, it seemed, had a deductible.
Act III: A Metaphor Too On-the-Nose
And yet, in the hallowed halls of commentary, the policy was
praised.
“America First!” they said.
“Job creator!” they claimed.
No matter that no job was saved which didn’t later die of
rising input costs and declining demand.
No matter that consumers paid $1.5 billion more for washers, and gained fewer
than 2,000 jobs in return - a sum that might have been better spent laundering
literal money.
Thus, the washer—a noble appliance of domestic peace—was
conscripted into a war of economic nonsense.
And in the end, it still spins. Louder,
pricier, and with a faint rattle that sounds an awful lot like “why?”
No comments:
Post a Comment