there are better ways to do industrial policy than tariffs, but if you were using tariffs to do industrial policy they would be sectoral, and certainly wouldn’t be incoherently targeting bilateral trade deficits.

Word of the day — “soteriology”, a doctrine or theology of salvation from @quinnae.com via @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com

if they had any sense they’d call the whole thing off and declare the weaker dollar a great victory.

every time i swipe the credit card, whatever bullshit i am blowing the money on, i am increasing my capital account surplus.

it’s been a long time, but i guess i’ll have to watch some 60 Minutes segments.

“Pushing family benefits would thus have the added benefit of revealing how full of shit [right-wing pronatalists] really are.” @mattbruenig.bsky.social mattbruenig.com/2025/04/13/t...

it’s an excellence one should pursue for its own sake.

the same forces that pushed Obama to say “if you like your health insurance you can keep it” pushes an effective housing politics to concede “if you like your neighbirhood, you can keep it” in neither case is the constraint necessarily virtuous. perhaps it can be overcome. but it’s the same problem

although the laundering itself remains illegal, providing extremely difficult to penetrate *money laundering services* has been effectively legalized, as long as the infrastructure is “digital assets”. see @jpkoning.bsky.social www.moneyness.ca/2025/04/if-i...

it’ll take a lot of “build[ing] back better” is for sure. one way or another, in a good direction or catastrophically, i expect permanent changes in the structure of the American state. Trump either consolidates or is repudiated. If (please God) repudiated, “never again” reforms will be needed.

the thing i struggle with most in this essay is the audience to which it is purported to write. 1. where we are now 2. ??? 3. “The next Democratic president” whatever is next is unlikely to be status quo government—the misequilibrium of post-2008 America—plus an ordinary transition of power.

📌

i dunno. duly elected, but utterly lawless, which detracts from any claims of due-ness.

the most insidious propaganda by mainstream media is how it cheerfully chatters the days away as though we are living through ordinary times rather than a desperate national emergency.

i just want to say @nytpitchbot.bsky.social, whoever they may be, is a certain kind of genius.

juan valdez didn’t contribute to the inauguration fund.

as a lay reader of the constitution, it seems to me the document explicitly envisions the structuring of the executive branch as a collaboration between the president and Congress. how does this Supreme Court justify expanding claims that Congress cannot structure offices of the executive branch?

a combination of taxing payouts to foreign securities holders (an indirect, incrementally titratable trade barrier that doesn’t discriminate between nations or goods) and subsidies of strategic industries, structured to ensure competition rather than build national champions, would do it.

every university should offer students whose visas are arbitrarily rescinded pathways to complete their degrees via remote learning.

a hard man, sizing up his new cellmate: “so, what’re you in for?” new cellmate: “finger painting”