As a side note, can you imagine being an accountant and trying to keep track of the tariff declarations that are changing daily?
I’m pretty sure all the people who deal with imports have to be on the verge of a mental breakdown. What a nightmare. Policy made by a petty, stupid tyrant based on apparently nothing but vibes and changing as often as he shits his diaper is no way to run a country, but here we are.
I literally think it’s so absurd that there has been some kind of collective agreement to just ignore Donald Trump’s dementia laden rambles.
Idk what’s actually happening here but I hope my knee jerk reaction is correct :)
I once worked on a project to calculate tariffs on goods for an importer. It was a massive job with lots of edges cases. And that was under normal conditions.
My gut feel is that some, maybe even most of this can be worked in, but there is absolutely going to be shit going under the radar because it’s too hard, too confusing or out right contradictory.
I’ve exported computer parts before and you’d be surprised that the way to declare them is not: “gaming PC” or “Macbook air 13"” in the customs form but more like “Data processing machines” and if you were to ship a motherboard, it has to be declared as “Data Processing Machine Parts” or whatever it is, with a totally different code and classification, same thing for memory devices, for CPUs and even for storage devices.
So yeah, I have a feeling they won’t even bother covering all the angles and just allow assembled computers, phones (since the US made iPhone is impossible at this point) and “chips” whatever they decide classifies as a chip.
Basically, a lot of the important shit that the CEOs of companies who contributed to his campaign depend on. So, he is caving, but only for his big donors.
I hope China doesn’t back down, though, and keep their counter-tariffs in place until all our dumb tariffs are taken away. Bullies only understand force.
The solution to chaos is….more chaos
I wonder if you can eat cellphones or inject computer chips instead of insulin…
What good is cheap(er) tech when you can’t afford drugs and groceries?
Ah yes, I forgot… His tech bro backers are probably behind this.
That didn’t originally mean Brave New World totalitarianism by distraction, it meant doing things the common people wanted and needed. Juvenal was an elitist and thought that the state should serve the ruling class and nobody else. So no relief from hunger, and no public ceremonies or events that the Great Unwashed could participate in.
