alt Hacker NewsWhat still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision.
When you put someone incompetent in charge of a country, a company, or a sports team, collapse is inevitable, no exceptions. We’ve seen it play out over and over again because of stupid choices only driven by ego.
Now it’s the US’s turn
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It’s been our turn for a hot minute. Republicans have been blowing up the status quo since Reagan, and the Democrats enforcing austerity since Clinton. American corporate leadership is excellent at hitting quarter-after-quarter KPIs for bonuses and share price growth, but there’s ample data it has all come at the expense of workers - increased precarity, decreased wages, increased costs of everything, as the country is plundered down to its core and sold off piecemeal.
Post-Carter United States (and South Korea, and Japan, and the UK, and much of the developed world in general) is a prime example of the follies of prioritizing numbers-on-a-spreadsheet growth in the short term, over a balanced and robust domestic economic engine that ensures a healthy, happy, stable populace that wants to have kids (since they have the money and time to be good parents).
> What still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision.
I'm no economist, but I can see that there are second order effects that this addresses that other systems would lack.
1) Tit for tat on tariffs doesn't work because of other barriers to trade such as currency manipulation, subsidies, regulations, etc.
2) We've learned from games such as iterated prisoner's dilemma that strategies that succeed are ones that clearly communicate how they'll act and respond. A clear formula such as deficit/imports accomplished this. Countries know exactly what they must address in order to access US markets.
3) You can end up playing whack a mole with countries in that they can set up shop in other countries to bypass tariffs in their own country. By applying a consistent formula to all countries, you no longer have to play whack a mole.
It seems thoughtful if you or your children or your friends are heavily invested in crypto and think removing the USD as the primary currency of trade is a good idea.
I know it's a Republican joke to blame evil meddling globalists for the US's problems but it sure seems like a bunch of people looking to ruin the US for their own global ambitions are running the show right now.
Luckily the US has quite some momentum so it can be hoped the damage is limited before the next election so it can then be reverted.
In this case it's much much worse than just incompetent. You're looking at someone who takes an evil delight it doing the opposite of what smart people say to do, and destroying stuff.
This is what forced me vastly curtail my news consumption for the most part. I can only take so much breathless reporting about the "strategy" of the Trump administration, when it's plainly sheer incompetence with the winds of malice in the background. There is no actual plan to "make America great again", it's non-stop incompetent pandering to a base that just wants others to suffer.
> What still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision
Maybe it's the "Why not inject disinfectant to beat covid" [1] for the economy. But this time nobody around him said no. (note: added around him)
Plenty of us knew the outcome would be catastrophic. We were outvoted by the idiots.
I'm really do appreciate all those on HN who comment either for or against these tariff measures by including cogent arguments and relevant facts. As against ...
There’s been many people opposed to free trade for decades, on both sides like Pat Buchanan and Bernie Sanders. You can think those guys are incorrect in their analysis, but calling it “mindless” is just ridiculous.
This tariff regime is simply a “minimal viable product” aimed at the idea of reducing structural trade deficits.
> What still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision.
It is. This is being done as part of a plan, with full intent.
I wonder how much more evidence American people need to see Trump for being a Russian asset and working against US interests.
We are in treason territory.
> What still baffles me is how people act like this was some kind of thoughtful decision.
I'm afraid it is. An unholy coalition of capitalist-anarchists and ultra-conservatives is the driving force behind it. They both want to reduce the influence of the government to a level as small as possible. That can only be done by dismantling the current federal government.
The clearest evidence of incompetence for all to see is Trump's cabinet from his first term. If they're actively speaking out against him, something is seriously wrong.
> Rex Tillerson on Trump: ‘Undisciplined,’ ‘doesn’t like to read' and tries to do illegal things
Sadly, people didn't vote for Trump so much as they voted for "anti-woke." Or: I am tired of being looked down on and this is my revenge.
For extra sauce on the "they're barely even thinking about this" cake someone figured out where those crazy "Tariff Charged" numbers were coming from, they're taking the trade deficit and dividing by the total imports from that country.
https://imgur.com/a/jBTiz7T
edit: The White House deputy press secretary posted their formula and it is just trade_deficit/2*total_imports per country just dressed up with a lot of fancy language to make it seem smarter but the two extra terms are constants.
https://x.com/KushDesai47/status/1907618136444067901