Progress

The weary old world makes progress, maybe slowly.  Case in point: U.S. tariffs on magic tricks and practical joke articles have fallen from 70% in 1930, to zero today. 

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) reports in its "Trade Fact of the Week": "Tariffs on Cars Are 2.5 Percent, But on Pickup Trucks 25 Percent"

Seventy years later, almost all American tariffs are lower than the ones Roosevelt inherited. The Hoover-era tariff on karate uniforms, for example, was 90 percent and the modern karate-uniform tariff is 9 percent. Tariffs on crabmeat have also fallen (though not as steeply) from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. Other examples: beach umbrella tariffs are down from 60 percent to 12 percent; howitzers and grenade launchers, from 27.5 percent to zero; Mother's Day roses, from 40 percent to 7.5 percent (and zero if they are from Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya, or other flower-growing beneficiaries of special duty-free programs); on helicopters from 30 percent to nothing; and on joy buzzers, exploding cigars, marked cards, and other "magic tricks and practical joke articles" from 70 percent to zero.

This PPI product looks interesting as well:

PPI explains America's odd tariff system, how it works, and why it is toughest on single mothers and least-developed countries in Asia: http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=108 &subsecid=900010&contentid=253112