My Read on Trump and the Tariffs

My sense of Trump is that he can read the room and learn from mistakes. My guess is that he'll adjust the tariffs to make more sense over time. Perhaps this is being generous, but I see him as pragmatic and opportunistic, not fanatical. I know others see him different. I guess time will tell. But as Tyler Cowen always says: "are you short the market?" 

Trade War

So now Americans can't buy the newest Nintendo Switch. Are we so sure we can win this trade war?

The Tariffs

Seem like a bad idea being handled in the way they are. Bluntly. The best argument seem to be: we've already lost our ability to be a global superpower and keep free trade secure around the world. So we might as well retreat to our hemisphere and re-shore industry here. Taiwan will belong to China and Ukraine to Russia. And let's cross our fingers and hope things work out.

Trump's Newest Book

"How To Diss Friends and Alienate People"

I wonder if Trump has considered the possibility that Apple and Tesla would just become Chinese companies rather than re-shoring.

The Algorithms No Longer Work 

Because people got wise...

I took my kids and their cousins to the computer history museum over Christmas where they had various AI robots and the kids immediately began bullying the AI. This was their natural reaction. When I see a robot delivering food, my initial reaction is to kick it over. You think something is wrong with me? I think something is wrong with you. Who wants these robots doing anything, much less calling the shots. Only the autistic. I'm not going to apologize for being a humanist...

Now we see even the cleverist systems breaking down. I noticed this on my own film - 29% rotten tomatoes critics, 97% rotten tomatoes audience, 5.2 rating on imdb, 2.4 rating on letterboxd. So the film ranges from shitty, to mediocre, to great on all the different algorithms. And Snow White. 1.9 on imdb, 40% critics on rotten tomatoes, 70% audience on rotten tomatoes, 2.0 on letterboxd. None of the numbers make any sort of sense. They might as well be monkey shit spraying all over the place. It's obvious with Snow White, the 1.9 on imdb are being rigged by "haters" but isn't the audience on rotten tomatoes "reacting" to the "haters". At some point we're going to get algorithms that algorithm the algorithms and every film ever made will be a perfect 5/10.

Re: Tariffs

I don't think America can sustain ourselves by simply being a consumer market and living on financial products, ie stock growth.

We need industries. We need to build. The past 25 years we've been carving up every industry but tech. 

So will the tariffs work? Probably not, but no one else has any other ideas so tariffs is what we're doing.

Start Reading The Chinese Perspective

Because we'll be soon living under it whether we want to or not. 

The added benefit is this guy is more rational than 80% of American commentary on the Ukraine war.

What Subject Am I Studying?

Core texts: The Crying Game, Silence of the Lambs, and Ace Ventura Pet Detective.