Oh I have no doubt that the Blackrocks and Birkshire Hathaway's of the nation are absolutely throbbing at the prospect. Literally diamonds. Those dusty old corpses won't need their hourly viagra until 2030.

Hadn't heard of this one, thanks. Americans are pros at not learning from history.

I thought this part was particularly funny/familiar:

It was a bill designed to fail in Congress because it was seen by free trade supporters as hurting both industry and farming, but it passed anyway.

Edit: That article lead me to this one, which gave me a good chuckle. How quaint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petticoat_affair

these women, dubbed the "Petticoats", socially ostracized Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife, Peggy Eaton, over disapproval of the circumstances surrounding the Eatons' marriage and what they deemed her failure to meet the "moral standards of a Cabinet Wife".

After further reading about Peggy Eaton's childhood, kind of a bummer. Also, John Eaton pulled a King David/Bethsheba on her first husband, quite literally... That's wild.

Once Timberlake told Eaton of his financial troubles, Eaton unsuccessfully attempted to have the Senate pass legislation that would authorize payment of the debts Timberlake had accrued during his Naval service. Eventually, Eaton paid Timberlake's debts and procured him a lucrative posting to the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean Squadron; many rumormongers asserted that Eaton aided Timberlake as a means to remove him from Washington, in order for Eaton to socialize with Peggy.

What a shithead. Literally sent him to fight pirates so he could bang the dude's wife hahah

I'm not sure what you're asking. If you're referring to softwood lumber the profits of Canadian lumber companies were at record levels because the US needs Canadian softwood lumber with or without tarrifs. The tarrifs didn't affect sales at all so with the increased demand despite the tarrifs Canadian companies didn't suffer at all. US consumers spent more and the money went to the US government which presumably gave some of the money to uncompetitive US softwood lumber companies to subsides their unprofitable operations. It's a tax on US consumers.

Canadian softwood lumber companies pay a stumpage fee to sustainably harvest softwood on public land. US softwood lumber companies pay much higher prices to harvest lumber mostly on private land. It's all about extracting the highest profit for the most wealthy people. Canada has a better system and the US is salty about it. The US has lost at the WTO every time but refuses to accept the result so it ignores its treaty obligations and just forges ahead with the illegal tarrifs which hurt US consumers.