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Probably that female fencer that took a knee in protest against her transgender opponent and was disqualified. Fox News was having a field day with that story (you know, the real important stuff).He’s too busy closing deals and shit. Besides, politics aren’t that serious. And even if they are, there’s a transgender out there somewhere who caused this mess!
Yep. Trump always makes it up as he goes along. There is no plan.Ah.........a sign that Trump is rattled a bit by changing his tune and affecting tomorrow's stock market. Now who would have seen that one coming?
You're pegging Trump?When? Tomorrow? Probably not. In a month? Maybe.
I am still personally pegging him to get to 25% at some point in his term.
They may come to regret this bad analogy. But maybe not?
Exactly. He got through today, but Trump can’t stand strong for long if the stock market is declining and rich people are unhappy.Ah.........a sign that Trump is rattled a bit by changing his tune and affecting tomorrow's stock market. Now who would have seen that one coming?
That’s pretty much the best we can hope for now.Exactly. He got through today, but Trump can’t stand strong for long if the stock market is declining and rich people are unhappy.
If I was a foreign nation, I’d hold the line, Trump will cave and be willing to announce a bogus deal that allows him to claim victory even though nothing changes.
Well, not really the best we can hope for.That’s pretty much the best we can hope for now.
What would that be?Well, not really the best we can hope for.
Not sure I can say it here. I know Turd Ferguson was banned from IC for saying it.What would that be?
Yeah. I read that after I posted and realized it sounded bad.You're pegging Trump?
Ewwww!Line of people who'd like to peg Trump is pretty long right now...
Well, Suro is wrong in the specifics, so I'm hoping that he's ready to back down a little bit. In the main, he's correct -- the tariff calculations are ridiculous for a number of reasons in theory and at least one specific way empirically (i.e. the data does not exist). But that formula is not actually Trade Balance/Exports. It's more complicated. The formula also contained two greek letters, call them e and p, and those represent elasticity and pass-through of implemented tariffs. When you include those, it's actually a plausible model for the concept.
1. If you're trying to compute "what tariff is necessary to zero out the trade balance," and you are going to completely ignore exports, then you could get the job done without too much complexity by multiplying a) volume of imports, b) the amount that prices will go up in response to the tariff, c) the amount that imports will decline in response to the tariffs. And that's exactly the denominator in that silly equation, although they messed up in a couple of ways. The elasticity is itself a function of price level (and not just tariff), and pass through has to be a function of market concentration, but anyway.
Now, why did they divide that into the trade balance? I have no idea. I suspect it was a fudge to get the numbers higher. Trade balance/exports should always be less than 1 (I think) under realistic conditions, so it must have been used to get the numbers down. Like, the model probably spit out numbers in excess of 100%, and even Trump realizes that strains credulity.
2. The bigger problem is that it's conceptual nonsense. First, the US doesn't know what e or p is (in the equation above) so it's just making shit up. Second, there's no attempt to model the effects of doing all the tariffs at once (because it will produce way different results if you're tariffing everyone or only one). Third, zeroing the trade balance is not a desirable goal and doesn't even make sense. Fourth, there's no attempt to inquire what would happen to exports (which can't be held constant because they are specifically dependent on imports). So it's a load of bullshit.
3. But just FYI to avoid misinformation, I think Suro is wrong in his description of that formula. He's right that the numbers make no sense at all. The conservatives are going to jump on him about the technicality. If you discuss this with someone, you can now say that you've had the formula explained and it doesn't make any sense even if it's not technically what Suro described.
Also, he gave the economy sepsis.Trump committed country economic reassignment surgery without the parents' permission.
As a Trans-economy, the US will no longer be able to enter global economic competitions.