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Tariff Man’s Not Much For Mathing
It'd be "complex, if not impossible," the United States Trade Representative said, to "comput[e] the
A 14 year old tween is being generous….maybe 11 or 12 is the proper “calculation”.
But why not at least say you are basing it on the trade balance instead of looking like you didn’t do your homework?
I mean, I’ve been relatively dismissive of the “these people are idiots” line of arguments (I don’t live in America) but this one is hard to explain away. A dumb, malicious autocrat is in many ways scarier than a competent, malicious autocrat (for those not living in that country anyway).
And see, this is what people like myself keep trying to patiently explain: If the questions are, 1) “Wait, we know Trump’s a lot of things, one of which isn’t a scholar, and a lot of US presidents weren’t the brightest crayons in the box, but is this president a literal simpleton, in a non-pejorative sense of the term?” and 2) “Is it fair to ask if he has some manner of learning disability?”, then the answers are (probably) “Yes” and “Yes.”
I mean, come on folks, look at him. Look at Don Jr. And for that matter, look at Elon Musk. Actually look at their facial features and their mannerisms. I swear to Christ I’m not trying to be an asshole in this particular instance. I’m just stating what, to me, is obvious: Those three people are mildly disabled.
You could easily imagine Musk and/or Trump eating directly from a can of baked beans on a cot at a homeless shelter if they weren’t who they are. “And this is Don everybody. Don has good days and bad days, but he’s very interested in global trade! Don, do you want to tell these nice people from social services about China?”
This comment right here is worth the entire price of a Heisenberg Report subscription.
I don’t watch TV or similar. I’m having a hard time getting [intellectually, I assume] disabled to go with Mr. Musk. His actions seem to align with his stated mission – eradicate woke mind virus, take revenge for personally unacceptable transition of child and intolerable to an autistic person interference by government during COVID, launch rockets – and it’s not like tech billionaires seem to be paragons of ethics in general. His past is also incompatible with intellectual disability. It’s probably fair to say he is actually disabled though, given autism and apparently some kind of substance use disorder. Maybe I’m missing something here.
As for Mr. Trump, his background seems more consistent with average intelligence paired with malignant narcissism than with intellectual disability. Half the population has below average intelligence but only a marginal % are disabled. I did listen to his Rogan podcast, and Musk’s. With Trump, the interview was confusing and honestly weird at times and did sound like mild cognitive impairment where that would mean age-related over primary intellectual disability, but also understandable why people would vote for him as he is charismatic to be fair. With Musk, he seemed obviously intelligent although also seeming to embrace some paranoid and alternative theories. It’s easy to dismiss no. 1. as politicians often do come across as a little dumb in general.
You hit the nail on the head here Johan, I don’t think you’re “missing something” at all.
Johan, wtf is “woke mind virus”? I mean, I realize you’re doing your best here, but try to understand: This is all nonsense. It’s just total bullsh-t. Rogan’s bullsh-t, Trump’s bullsh-t, Musk too, all of them. This is a travesty perpetrated upon the whole world by a bunch of insecure right-wing red-pillers harvesting rage capital for their own monetary and political gain, and if it keeps going, it’s gonna cause a ton of misery for a ton of people. These guys are charlatans, through and through.
Heisenberg, “woke mind virus” is quoting Musk’s own words. It’s what he (Musk) actually thinks. Johan (if I’m interpreting him correctly, obviously I can’t speak for the guy) agrees with you so far as I can tell, and is just trying to process where intellectual disability enters into it.
Musk is a grifter, but he’s also a believer. He’s not just one of the leaders of the cult, he’s a member in good standing.
It’s Musk’s preferred term, which seems intended to convey that cultural liberalism is transmitted memetically. You got me there: I haven’t done a thorough analysis of this. I took “the woke mind virus killed my son” to mean “cultural liberalism, spread memetically, infected my child, causing gender transition to seem desirable”, but I don’t honestly know if that is what it means. If it is what it means then I agree with some of it (memetic theory generally is somewhat sensible and can be meaningfully applied to liberalism; the culture wars seem highly inflammatory and occasionally cause people to embrace extremist positions on both sides) and disagree with some of it (as far as we know, that is not why transgender individuals exist, and also are you completely heartless). It’s not a term I would use. But whether that’s what he means or not, you’d call it paranoid, not intellectually disabled.
For some it may be grift, but if so for Musk I don’t understand what he gains by it. It’s a threat to his companies. It might eventually end the Mars dream which he by objective analysis seems to consider highly important. The best explanation is he believes in what he does and genuinely thinks this stuff is important (I mean the culture wars) and believes the red pill stuff. Even if it’s the other thing that he wants to get rid of scrutiny of his companies he would do better to shut up about the paranoid material. You or I might not share his frame of mind or think it’s based in evidence, but that doesn’t in and of itself mean he is stupid or acting irrationally.
“Woke Mind Virus” seems to be the Musk/MAGA derogatory label for tolerance derived from empathy. Full stop. Used by people who seem to have no empathy and hate others who do.
I’m the last person who should be commenting on parenting given that I have no children, but has it not occurred to everyone to ask whether “strange” / “deviant” proclivities among the youth in Western democracies might be attributable to social media and the ubiquity of smart devices? Is it really Chuck Schumer’s fault? Or George Soros’s fault? Maybe we should start asking, like, “When was the last time my child went outside and hit a baseball?” Or “Hmm, all the children in my neighborhood come home from school every day and instead of playing soccer and street hockey with each other until dinner time, they’re locked in their rooms doing God only knows what on the computer and their phones, I wonder if there’s some connection between that and abnormal behavior?”
Instead of blaming “woke mind viruses” maybe these people should confiscate their male children’s iPhones and iPads and say, “Nope. You’re going to go outside and do what boys have been doing since time immemorial from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM, which is kicking or throwing some kind of ball with your friends, getting in fights with those same friends and coming home inexplicably muddy.”
My guess is that if we did that, we’d discover the problem wasn’t George Soros or AOC after all, it was those God-forsaken smart devices and the apps on them that were causing the developmental issues.
Regardless of how you feel about “woke”, the pain in “the mind virus killed my son” seems apparent. Here embracing Dawkins’ “viruses of the mind” theory serves a useful psychological function in that it seems to absolve both the parent and the parent’s image of the child of responsibility, blaming an outside agency and validating Mr. Musk’s reaction of wrath rather than compassion. It’s easy to embrace a theory if the theory has utility for you but at the same time that usually happens (I think) in a way such that you actually shift your beliefs as opposed to maintaining one belief system while expressing another. Ironically, “viruses of the mind” would probably apply better to the various conspiracy theories going around than a broad cultural shift, so if that is where the term – which he apparently developed after the daughter’s transition and popularized – comes from, then you could equally say “the red pill mind virus killed a tech paragon”.
Or maybe tools of some malign foreign actor intent on destroying the USA? (See what I did here? I did not mention Russia.)
Not really good at maps either, as this headline from CNN suggests: “An uninhabited island, a military base and a ‘desolate’ former whaling station.” I think he’s sniffing the sharpies at this point.
Absurdly vapid is so accurate. These geniuses don’t understand economics and trade policy. If they maintain this trajectory then Repubs won’t be able to defend the inflation of goods, nor explain away the losses in stocks in people’s retirement plans. Therefore, in the mid-term elections they are likely to lose the razor thin majority they have in the House and lower their majority in the Senate. His political capital is eroding as people awaken to the absurdly vapid.
As ridiculous as this all looks, imagine you showed up to your now-understaffed office (i.e., “efficient”) at Customs and Border Protection this morning, and your job is to reprogram and code the Harmonized Tariff Schedule which governs the applicable tariffs on each product imported based on what exactly it is (category), where it came from (country of origin) and how much, if any, exempt US content may be contained therein (US value added).
Who knew MAGA meant taking the clown car to the shit show?
Now excuse me while I find my ID so I can go out and front-run the price increases on “groceries” — such a lovely word that you hardly hear anymore –“groceries.” I hope the store carries athletic cups because I’m planning to cut out the middleman and start DIY-ing my nut punches to save money.
You’re right to draw attention to CBP, but the real nut punch arrives when the de minimus exemption for China ends. The executive order gives them a few weeks to get ready, but, assuming the fact statement in the xo is some semblance of accurate, CBP processes 4 million de minimus packages from China a day and now that will all require a duties collection step.
Looking at the slaughterhouse that is today’s market, PDD (parent of Temu) hasn’t taken nearly enough pain.
I agree. I’m not sure why there was a grace period provided to de minimis shipments since those are arguably one of the very few instances of our trade partners (China) actually gaming the system. Perhaps a donation was made to the Presidential Library.
But there are tens of billions of dollars of goods already at ports and in transit that no one really wants at this point if subject to these fake news tariffs. Exporters don’t want them back, importers don’t want to pay the tariffs, and retailers don’t want to get stuck with high priced inventory it can’t sell. Same goes with raw materials and intermediate goods. Someone in the chain has to take the risk that they will eventually be made whole via higher downstream prices.
Until then, a lot stops in its tracks, leading to shortages of things people still want and can afford, and inventory pile ups of everything else.
Trump keeps heaping more foul fuel on the trash fire that’s his second term. Mucking with currency – see March 29th’s “People are starting to notice” and now these brilliantly concocted tariffs. People with real money, the sort delineated by Mr. H, are only going to tolerate so much of this.
Somewhere for those 2000 or so people with real money, there is a guy who knows a guy who knows the best there is who can eliminate at least some of our problem. Wait for it.
that picture of him is chef’s kiss
Whatever the mango mussolini and his henchmen’s level of intellect, they are stupid. We’re starting to pay the price.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-careless-stupidity-kill-the?
That Krugman suggestion that these tariffs were created by a junior staffer using Chat GPT , is so impossible to believe!… but …
More on the math here: https://heisenbergreport.com/2025/04/03/an-insane-crazy-embarrassing-fiasco/
It just gets worse and worse.