SOME THOUGHTS ON TARIFFS: Many people argue that tariffs will not have the intended effect the new Trump admin is trying to achieve. People argue that: 1. Tariffs will harm Trump's goal to increase domestic manufacturing because it will increase the costs of importing necessary inputs. The assumption is that the US supply chain is too reliant on imports. 2. Tariffs will increase domestic consumer costs, which will be inflationary. 3. Foreign trade partners will manipulate their exchange rates or retaliate with their own tariffs tit-for-tat, thus defeating the purpose of Trump's initial escalation. All of these arguments are wrong and are predicated on a fallacious framework of the global monetary system. The primary mistake is that most economists analyze economies in isolation from the global economy. And, they also do not understand the overarching goal. Consider an analogy: If you have the biggest stack of chips at the poker table, you can intentionally run other players over with large, aggressive bets that force other players to bleed out by antes. Your bets might be poor or harm yourself, but that's not the goal. The goal is to be the last person with chips. Banks do this all the time against fixed-income arbitragers. In a relative value trade between two bond spreads, after you put the trade on the risk is that the spread continues to widen and you get margin called to death. If you blow up, the bank doesn't have to make payments on your swaps and they can fill your position. Another example is in commodities. If threatened, the largest commodity producers will destroy their own profits by flooding the market, which crashes prices and forces smaller players out of business. The game is about survival. Can you hold the trade? Can you manage price volatility? Okay, well all of these examples are infinitesimal in comparison to the geopolitical equivalent. When large governments start playing this game, the goal is to bleed out the economies on the periphery, even if their domestic economy gets damaged in the near term. The United States is the biggest player in the game because the entire world is dependent on US dollar liquidity. People have argued that the world will stop buying US bonds, because [insert nonsense argument here] and examples of this are rising yields and falling global bond holdings. This is a complete misunderstanding of what is taking place. First of all, the main reason why bond holdings have fallen is mainly not because of selling (though that has happened but not for the reasons people cite), it's because interest rates rose and the value of the bonds fell. This was probably done on purpose to squeeze global liquidity. Mathematically, dollar demand can NEVER fall faster than dollar supply. As dollar liquidity falls, dollar obligations rise while costs to acquire those dollars increase. There is not enough available money to match all future debt obligations. Though various forms of debt have "moneyness", neither debt nor money can be both. Debt is an obligation to pay money. But money is money! Many economies around the world, especially BRICS, require inflows of dollars. If the rate of those inflows go down relative to their dollar obligations, they have problems. The periphery economies blow up first because they are the smaller players at the poker table and they bleed out by higher antes imposed by the bigger player. In this context, the US is both the biggest stack at the table AND the dealer controlling the cost of the ante for all the players. Furthermore, none of the players can get up from the table and play a different game. They pretend to, they jawbone about doing so, but in the end, no one can leave. Unless the Decepticons and Autobots show up on a nearby planet and we start trading with them, there is no other game to play. In the real world, central planners have to protect the integrity of their sovereign bond market to fund their government, and they will devaule their currency if they have to accomplish this. Recent examples are Sri Lanka, Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt. Despite a rising GDP, India's currency continues to make new all-time lows. Brazil fell under this same pressure over the previous 12 months. And, Japan is at the heart of all of this. How do tariffs influence these circumstances? It's the same as raising the ante at the poker table and forcing the other players to bleed out. This is economic statecraft intending to renegotiate the world and unwind imbalances, especially in China. Will it work? Maybe, maybe not. But, the West has been asleep at the wheel since the fall of the Berlin Wall. These policies, if implemented as stated, will force the rest of the world to do things that none of their leaders have had to think about, or have been generationally prepared to deal with. Now, we all get to witness how well they understand the system they are part of. Would you rather try to take out the big stack at the poker table or play with him and let him take out your competitors while you get some of their chips, too? The decisions seem obvious to me.

@BillAckman @unitednations The UN is evil. Europe must be liberated from their leaders and decoupled from China.

@GadSaad I literally just found out what that means for the first time 😀

AI will increase Dynamic Society Rational Memes and expose Static Society Anti-Rational Memes. Left brain vs Right brain Linear vs Non-Linear Convex vs Concave Fragile vs Anti-Fragile

@wildbarestepf Yes. And the deep state is the deepest state that has ever stated

@Globalflows

@realsashastone Best scene

@kennyflorian @ZubyMusic @EndWokeness

FYI before the Fed was created in 1915 the M2 money supply grew at the same rate as it has today. So noodle on that before arguing with me…

@ZubyMusic @EndWokeness @kennyflorian This interpretation of the data is disingenuous, currency devalues as the economy grows - this was true before 1915 with no central bank as well.

@TiffanyFong_ Lies stop yes you did

Sending money via email was evidently a simpler time

@HSajwanization ITS NOT A PITCH OLI ITS A FIELD

@TiffanyFong_ Too much winning idk what to do

Who cares. Get a life.

Good night to everyone except Taylor Swift

@sarah_luna_1111 And on this note, I’m going to bed 🥱

@wildbarestepf I think a lot of people tell themselves they’re in the arena when they’re not, and they develop emotional projecting coping mechanisms as a result.

@MaryTilesTexas I have no idea, maybe the algo is prejudiced against Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions fans :/