Seems they reversed course on that. Or, they don’t know what they’re doing.
> It's been a confusing day.
> As Verity said, it turns out Canada and Mexico are not getting a new 10 per cent tariff after all.
> The White House reversed its earlier announcement in a new statement just now. Here's the bottom line: No new developments for Canada and Mexico today.
> That means there are still worldwide 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum, on some auto parts in North America, and on some goods traded within North America outside the rules of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade (CUSMA).
> The bottom line here: Trump is starting an economic war on China, and U.S. allies are all taking some friendly fire. But a large swath of Canadian trade is spared.
They know what they are doing. The goal is decoupling from China. They raised tariffs on everyone to see which countries stood with US and which stood with China. Once each country has made their allegiance clear, they delay the deadline to give more time for negotiation. They likely want every ally to raise their tariffs on China to be very very high, to avoid any more transshipping from China.
Presumably because those were in retaliation for the steel and aluminum tariffs, not the reciprocal tariffs. It takes them time to respond because the EU members must vote on it. We have yet to see what their action will be with the reciprocal tariffs.
You’re joking, but it’s true. I’ve been living in Turkey on and off and I’m convinced that slow changing rules are indeed a blessing.
Unlike Europe, in Turkey rules and everything is changing all the time, you can’t count on anything to be the same the next 5 years. No one in the institutions knows how everything works, they only follow the computer instructions. You are getting a loan? its a mystery if you will be able to get the stated amount because if you are buying a house down the road the computer may ask for the energy efficiency rating and limit the amount based on that. They will say that it is to promote energy efficient buildings but that regulation will remain only for a year or two- not enough to change buildings practices but enough to limit the loans given without explicitly limiting the loans given.
It’s a horrible thing, you can’t plan anything and those with connections end up catching all the good temporary situations because the got tipped. The moment the masses start realizing the opportunity, the rules chage.
It has become a tool for giving favors to loyalists and created a lot of horrible people who got “lucky” with their investments. When the politicians feel like paying loyalists, they will change something in the law that will allow for previously non-developable land to become developable and loyalist will get tipped that they should buy the land before prices increase. It will be something non-obvious, like something about changing the category of a road or something that changes the status of the land when appealed.
UK has had a stable system for many hundreds of years. I don't think it's something that can't be done at the country level, you don't need the EU to do this too!
I find it curiously useful that Trump’s blatant lying can be used as a shibboleth. E.g.: they’re not reciprocal tariffs, so almost everyone calling them that is a “true believer” that accepts Trump at his word.
Ok, what do you call them so you don't confuse that round of tariffs with other ones? "April 2 tariffs" doesn't work because, while that day was when they were announced, the steel and aluminum tariffs also went into effect on that same day.
> they’re not reciprocal tariffs, so almost everyone calling them that is a “true believer” that accepts Trump at his word.
I disagree. Non Trump aligned media called them reciprocal tariffs. I don't know if identifying the lie was too controversial or they couldn't understand the equation the administration published. And non Trump aligned people called them reciprocal tariffs because they heard or read the phrase.
I’m not sure they need to coordinate, except for the state of US Politics. Take the hit now, then seek a long term better deal elsewhere, with more stable policies.
Why does any comment always assume the average American is commuting ludicrous distances each morning. People do this, but its very, very rare. Hyperbole is getting in the way of discussion.
1-hour one way commutes are NOT rare at all in Amazon's hub locations. Housing near the office is supremely expensive, school districts are also not the best, and most people have partners and need to live in a location that balances 2 peoples' commutes. On top of that, Amazon is such a big employer that they single-handedly make the traffic worse in at least Seattle.
Also, keep in mind that it isn't just the commute time. For a 1-hour commute I also need to prepare for the 1-hour commute, which includes making and packing up a lunch (because many offices have no cafeteria or no options that I'm able to eat), packing up my electric toothbrush and water flosser (because I need to brush 3 times a day for my braces and they won't let me leave shit at the office). Others need to deal with feeding pets, blah blah. For people with train commutes they need to deal with uncertainty in traffic just getting to the train station, so they have to leave an extra 15-20 minutes early and kill time waiting for the train on the platform because the next train won't come for a fucking hour (this is America), and leave time to line up to buy the goddamn parking ticket for the train station.
For the past 2 years people were able to roll out of bed and into a meeting, grabbing something from the fridge on the way. That's why stuff was efficient. Now we're going back to an inefficient world with the same high expectations of an effecient world.
Again, if we are talking about FANG HQs, anything in the Bay Area, Austin, or NYC then yea sure. I'm just suggesting that rhetorically this is a losing strategy because it's such an outlier. Most Americans don't work at the headquarter(s) of the most successful company on Earth.
Counting the time to get dressed and brush your teeth towards the office is comically absurd, in my opinion, even if I take your point. THAT SAID good luck with the braces I don't miss the constant brushing. That would make me want to WFH. Cheers
Newspapers used to have very geographically limited competition in advertising for things like apartment rentals, for-sale listings, and job listings. They also got a fair bit of national brand advertising, even after TV eclipsed them. The lack of competition enabled them to do things that don't make money -- like in-depth investigative journalism. A newspaper that contained only meaty investigative journalism could not cover its costs with advertising, even back in 1990.
This is similar to how today's high-margin advertising funded companies (e.g. Google, Facebook) can afford to pursue out-there projects with no prospect of making money in the short term. Investigative journalism was a vanity/halo product that usually didn't make money, funded by people overpaying to advertise in the newspaper.
In a case of perfect competition and low barriers to entry, newspapers have to prioritize minimally expensive content as a supporting scaffold for advertising. Newspapers are much closer to this "perfect competition" case now than they were in 1990. (A very few newspapers like the New York Times achieved "escape velocity" to reach a national audience on the strength of their reporting.) Likewise, if Google were up against a dozen other nearly-as-good search engines, neither it nor its competitors would have the luxurious cash surpluses for "moonshot" projects.
The golden ages of AT&T and IBM were also back when they enjoyed monopolistic pricing power. They could afford to do Nobel Prize winning research instead focusing slavishly on cost efficiency. They overcharged everyone, and a bit of that surplus money was reinvested in scientific research and product quality that was higher than what an equilibrated competitive market would converge on.
I wouldn't give AT&T a telephone monopoly again just to bring back Bell Telephone Laboratories. But certain kinds of positive externalities seem to emerge only from businesses enjoying fat margins and high pricing power. One of those positive externalities, in the case of newspapers in the 20th century, was deep reporting.
