Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, May 16, 2025

Our Failed (Business) Media Experiment

 Trump has not called off his trade wars. As Krugman notes, we have gone from certifiably insane tariffs to merely crazy ones. At some point, someone must've gotten through to Trump that 145% tariffs on China would cripple the economy in ways we can't fully grok.  The thing is, a 30% tariff on China would have a devastating impact, too. This is a really, really high tariff and a tariff that comes at a time when America's economy is deeply integrated with the rest of the world.

It sounds like mid-June is when we will see shortages start to hit American stores. That or a massive spike in many products.

The stock market and business media seems to think that Trump has called off his trade war, when he hasn't. What will happen when the real burdens of this benighted policy start to become apparent.

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