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April 4, 2025
Sunrise — 6:26, 6:35.
Talk about whatever you want in the comments. And support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.
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58 comments:
April and still no leaves on the trees?
The trees here (SW Idaho) don't have leaves yet. Soon, though...
Ha! Three hour drive north of Madison and we still have snow on the ground and the lakes are still frozen.
Spring is in full bloom down here.
A family of cardinals has taken up residence in a bush in front of our front porch, about six feet from the window over our kitchen sink, and easily visible from inside.
There's a nest, below eye level, with five (I think) little dark mottled eggs, and mom never leaves for very long.
It will be interesting to see how they handle the continued storms and return of cooler weather after tomorrow. And the cats that wander by.
My wife and I now wonder if adult birds build nests to live in as a matter of course, or whether it's just for eggs and young. Do they stay in empty nests?
Somebody ask Grok, stat!
@Leland, I did notice today that a willow tree near Lake Mendota had sprouted its leaves, but they were still very very small. Gave a nice chartreuse tint to the tree though. If we were to have a couple of warm nights that would speed things up, but snow is forecast for early next week. The slow crawl towards Spring continues here.
Here in the high desert in Central NM, we haven't had precipitation for over three months. I have planted several desert willows, NM olives, cliff roses and penstemons and have a low pressure irrigation set up for them. I have watered several times now, and the NM olives are starting to show signs of life. The willows won't bud out for another month. we had a very cold spell a few months ago and some of the penstemons didn't make it. The iris are coming to life, and the daffodils have bloomed or are blooming depending on their relation to the sun. The Russian sage are doing fine, but they are hard to kill. I'll give the cedars around the house a good watering in a few weeks if nothing shakes out soon.
Too soon for leaves here. Lots of early tree blossoms.
and ... snow.
Today Scott Adams reiterated his view that AI will never be able to create art or jokes because in his view art, humor are part of the mating ritual. I think he’s wrong. I’ve told the Althouse/Grok sandwich joke to several people (always identifying it as AI first and everyone laughs.
Many years ago I read an article in US News and World Report. The theory was that our brains seek out patterns - when there’s a slight deviation from the expected pattern - that’s what our brains delight in. According to the article that would explain our appreciation of humor and visual art and music. I see that with the sandwich joke - as soon as I mention “my childhood trauma” people start to laugh - it’s such an unexpected little twist.
(Grok’s joke: "I ordered a sub with everything—now it’s got salami, provolone, the Andromeda Galaxy, and my childhood trauma, and the guy’s still asking if I want it toasted!"
In an earlier thread John Althouse Cohen posted ...
"The numbers in the chart he displayed to make his argument that these tariffs are “reciprocal” are made-up numbers that aren’t even close to the truth. "
I hadn't heard this before and was very interested in where he got this information. Does anyone have a link to the site where this information was obtained? I would like to read the entire article and also see the source of this information.
@William50 .. quoting NR via Powerline
... It divided the country’s goods-trade deficit with the U.S. by its amount of exports to the U.S. and then divided that in half. For the more than 100 countries with which the U.S. has a trade surplus, it set the tax rate at 10 percent. It’s all based not on tariffs or unfair trade practices but simply on the existence of a trade deficit...
So no, the number is not "made up". Even the negative review of the action in NR doesn't claim that, though it does truthfully note that the figures are not related to existing tariffs on American products and so are not 'reciprocal' as would be ordinarily understood.
William50, Grok say this, and it seems convincing.
The method, as outlined by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and pieced together from economic analyses, used 2024 U.S. Census Bureau trade data. For each country, they took the U.S. goods trade deficit with that nation, divided it by the total26 total value of that country’s goods exports to the U.S., and then halved the result to set the “discounted reciprocal tariff” rate, with a minimum of 10%. For example, with China, the U.S. had a $295 billion trade deficit and imported $438 billion in goods. Dividing $295 billion by $438 billion yields about 67%, which, when halved, rounds to the 34% tariff Trump imposed on China, on top of an existing 20% tariff.
I should note I have no idea what source JAC is using for the claim the number is 'made up'. I'm simply relaying what a source I'm aware of that is unsympathetic to the tariffs reported as the way in which they were calculated. "Made up numbers not close to the truth" seems to be hyperbolic shorthand for a calculation that is only tangentially related to the usual description of the tariffs as 'reciprocal'.
YouTube: More evidence of 2020 election interference
This time, from big pharma documents DOJ is looking into.
Our fig trees look like they die each winter, but they are currently covered with leaves fit for the Garden of Eden.
Talk about
Pop muzik
Talk about
Pop muzik
Pop pop pop
Pop muzik
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Pop muzik
@william50
"Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us."
https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942
Why Economists Are Horrified by Trump’s Tariff Math ~ Time
https://time.com/7274651/why-economists-are-horrified-by-trump-tariff-math/
How Are Trump’s Tariff Rates Calculated? ~ WSJ
It’s a basic formula, and it doesn’t include what countries charge the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-tariff-math-calculations-explained-ba47bfde
Will "nobody cares about money, it's just a bunch of digits" be a winning message for Republicans in 2026?
I posted this on the tariff thread, but that seems to be dead, so here it is again. A long tweet by 'Blume Industries CEO Balding' explains what's going on, which is more complex and far more plausible than the version people keep repeating here and elsewhere: link. I got that link from John Konrad V (@johnkonrad), who also links to this thread by Tanvi Ratna explaining Trump's plan as a whole: link. Read and digest both before writing another word on Trump's tariffs if you don't want to look like a fool or paid propagandist.
⬆️ Don't over-think things. Trump just loves tariffs and believes they have magic powers. It really isn't any more sophisticated than that. Trumps gambling that generations of politicians, economists, CEOs, small-business owners, academics and even some of his own staffers are wrong — and that he's right.
@ Dr Weevil: If you want to understand Trump's approach, you should read Stephen Miran’s “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System”. Stephen Miran is chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers.
Stephen Miran’s essay presents a structured argument on global trade imbalances, U.S. industrial competitiveness, and the role of the dollar in the international financial system. At its core, his thesis operates under the assumption that the global market follows a near-perfect demand-supply equilibrium, where international producers depend on American consumers and the exchange rate naturally adjusts to accommodate changes in trade dynamics. While this framework might hold in a theoretical economic model, it overlooks key realities of modern trade, global power shifts, and the complexities of the *Triffin dilemma.
One of the most striking oversights in Miran’s analysis is his implicit assumption that global manufacturers, particularly those in China, require access to the U.S. market to remain viable. While this may have been true in previous decades, the global economy has evolved beyond a U.S.-centric consumption model. China, India, and other emerging economies are rapidly expanding their own domestic demand, reducing their reliance on American buyers. Miran does not fully account for the fact that manufacturers are not bound by volume-driven sales but can instead optimize profitability by restricting supply and raising prices. This directly challenges Miran’s presumption that producers will always prioritize access to the U.S. market at all costs.
The second major issue in his argument is his proposed solution to U.S. trade imbalances—devaluing the dollar to boost exports—while simultaneously maintaining the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. This is a fundamental contradiction that Miran does not resolve.
While his essay raises important questions about the future of the global financial system, it does not successfully “square the circle” of how the U.S. can simultaneously maintain its monetary dominance while reversing its trade imbalances. In an era of growing economic multipolarity, such a vision seems increasingly detached from reality.
*Gold and the Dollar Crisis. By Robert Triffin
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/gold-and-the-dollar-crisis-by-robert-triffin-new-haven-yale-university-press-1960-pp-xiv-195-475/50122DBC8D4EAAF7EFCC35B53B61221F
Two days in and the people who couldn't even spell 'tariffs' last week are now experts in the field.
Should Trump end up being right, those of us who are sitting back to see what happens won't look nearly as foolish as those arrogantly predicting the future.
Again.
To all you Trump haters: give me 3 things you admire about Trump - and not backhanded compliments but real qualities and/or achievements. If you can’t do that then you have no credibility when you criticize him. Because then it’s TDS all the way down.
Ye of little faith: I don't understand the screaming mimi's over Trump and the Tariffs. First of all, they've already been successful as Canada and Mexico readily attested. Secondly, This president is not new to the office, so if one thinks back all the way to his last term as president 5 or so years ago, he played the tariff card and won. Best economy in American memory until covid.
Finally, Business and personal relationships are what Donald Trump does best. He is respected, feared, and admired by leaders around the world because he works tirelessly and resolutely for the people of the USA. He knows what he's doing and he's far, far better at it than any of his critics are at what they do.
Ovechkin is tied with Gretzky at 894 goals, after scoring twice tonight. "Russian Machine Never Breaks."
TeaBagHag: what part of no backhanded compliments did you not understand?
Many years ago I was discussing my cousin’s daughter with her. Her daughter got an A in high school chorus. It was her only A in all of high school and I complimented her for it. Later my cousin told me I was wrong to do that. An A in chorus! How typical of her daughter to get an A in Chorus. So I said fine - give me 3 good things your daughter had done - in her whole life so I can compliment her on those. Silence. So I said give me one good thing about your daughter. One. Silence. I lost all respect for that stupid woman then and there. And that became one of the ways I judge people. If you can’t give me 3 good attributes or qualities about another human being, then I put you in the same category as my cousin - you’re just not someone worth paying attention to.
Roberts sides again with liberal justices. Starting to see a pattern.
In physics, we have come to recognize the principle of relativity, which says that different observers will disagree on multiple aspects -- indeed, possibly all aspects -- of the description of a physical phenomenon, yet they will all agree on the speed at which light travels. Distance varies, time varies, but their relation is constant.
I want to suggest a moral, or ethical, principle of relativity. Or rather, to recognize, to emphasize, that such a principle has already been promulgated by a more gifted observer than myself, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who noted that the line between Good and Evil passes through every human heart. I am not suggesting that this principle is recognized by all systems of moral thought. The principle of relativity, as propounded by Einstein, was not accepted by physics, until he proposed it. Nonetheless, it is now generally agreed that any proposition that contradicts it is necessarily false. The Universe is so constructed that certainty is always erroneous.
Eva Marie said...
Many years ago I was discussing my cousin’s daughter with her...
4/4/25, 10:57 PM
That sounds like a sad story in the making, Eva Marie. That poor child. I wonder how the daughter grew up and what she's like now.
Merril Hoge wrote a book, Find A Way, about his life and recounts being raised by cold and cruel parents who never showed him the least affection. Despite that, He became a good man and married and raised a loving family.
Last day of daylight savings time in New Zealand.
Fall back.
From Fox:
The 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff worsened the Great Depression and wiped out the Republican Party. By 1933, Republicans lost over 100 seats in the House as well as their majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Even seniority and power could not save the tariff’s authors and president who signed it into law the next time they faced the voters. Oregon Republican Congressman Willis Hawley, who served 26 years in the House, was not renominated to return to his seat. After serving five terms in the Senate, Republican Senator Reed Smoot, of Utah, was defeated in 1932. And, Herbert Hoover, the Republican president who signed Smoot-Hawley into law, lost the White House in a landslide to Franklin Roosevelt.
The 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff worsened the Great Depression....
Checks calendar.
Sees it's 2025
There is a realignment going on I've never seen before.
Hans Mahncke
@HansMahncke
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No need to imagine—Obama did something worse than any president in history. He used the full weight of the federal government to orchestrate a smear campaign framing his successor as a Russian agent. It remains the most disgraceful abuse of power in modern American politics.
Western Lensman
@WesternLensman
Obama is back to whine about Trump: "Imagine if I had done any of this."
"It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me."
The Obama administration weaponized the IRS against conservatives, spied on a Fox News
https://x.com/HansMahncke/status/1908329795571626388
Jim, "those of us who are sitting back to see what happens"
Very true, I've no idea what will happen in six months or six years. But it funny to see so many confident predictions.
…this little snip for the newly-minted economics experts: President Donald Trump, whose wealth has skyrocketed from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $5.1 billion in 2025.
Dumbest Man in World Makes Billions…
Derbyshire repeats a quip on English law giving me a chance to copy-paste it
Mr. O'Shaughnessy, has your client never heard the expression sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas?
My Lord: in the remote farming village in County Kilkenny where my client lives, they speak of little else.
rehajm @ 4:28... All Wharton grads for sure.
@ Jim.. The return of mercantilist thinking—especially tariffs aimed at forcing companies to reshore production—has introduced deep confusion into global trade policy. The Trump administration’s approach, which imposes high tariffs to incentivize domestic manufacturing and then seeks foreign government concessions in return for tariff relief, assumes that production location can be negotiated between governments. But this idea fundamentally misunderstands how modern economies function.
Foreign governments cannot guarantee where their companies invest or produce. In market-driven economies, firms make those decisions based on costs, logistics, and long-term strategies. Asking a foreign official to promise U.S.-- bound factory construction simply exceeds what diplomacy can offer. It also risks breaching international trade norms and provoking retaliation.
For the U.S., expecting countries to commit to reshoring in exchange for tariff reductions turns trade policy into an impossible form of industrial planning by proxy. It overestimates diplomatic leverage and underestimates private-sector autonomy. For foreign diplomats, being asked to deliver something outside their jurisdiction only leads to frustration and impasse.
This approach also ignores basic economics. U.S. production tends to be costlier. If companies relocate under tariff pressure, prices rise, demand falls, and real wage growth stagnates. Protected domestic goods may sell at higher prices but in smaller quantities. Consumers pay more, companies lose margins, and the overall economy slows.
In the end, trying to link tariffs to foreign-directed reshoring is not a viable policy. It offers no clear path to enforceable agreements, alienates partners, and distracts from what actually drives competitiveness: investment, innovation, and efficiency. Tariffs may serve symbolic goals, but as a strategy to restructure global supply chains through diplomacy, they demand what no government can deliver—and no economy can afford.
@wendybar, Obama installed an obviously cognitive declining man into the US Presidency. One he admitted F’s things up even when not in decline. All so he can have a third term without being the front man. That’s pretty hard to top, in my view.
I am in the wait and see camp. My nest egg has shrunk, along with everyone else’s, which a little distressing, but the $37T debt is a looming anvil waiting to quash my nest egg badly, as well. I’d rather something be tried to avoid that larger threat.
I also have read that countries on the receiving side, at least in a few cases, are welcoming the US tariff cudgel to break the reliance of their economies on the tariffs they impose on the US and elsewhere. It will force them to be more self-reliant as well, and put them in a stronger position long term. I dunno. I am bad at economics, but that seems like a healthy response to me.
Iman: Pop Muzik, wow. I heard that song on a transatlantic flight when I was in middle school. This was in the days when your headphones were rubber tubes and you selected channels with a little thumb dial in your armrest, and the in-flight magazine had the playlists. The song was on the "New Euro" channel or something like that. Probably heard it 3 or 4 times in the course of the flight. Burned it in my brain forever. Thanks!
JSM
It’s ear worm material for sure, john mosby!
KROQ.
Kak: Your economic analysis is sophisticated. Thanks. I do disagree on several points:
"Asking a foreign official to promise U.S.-- bound factory construction simply exceeds what diplomacy can offer."
A lot of our trade frenemies are countries with sophisticated industrial policies, where the government has multiple levers to use on their companies. Some of them are authoritarian/totalitarian and own part of their industries. But enough about the UK. (sorry) For example, Vietnam reached out to Trump yesterday. And come on, the ChiComs have total control over any Chinese company, and lots of formal and informal levers over foreign companies in the PRC. And you and I are old enough to remember people praising the Japanese keiretsu and ROK chaebol systems, with tight cooperation between government and industry. Those systems still exist, even though Japan and the ROK may no longer perform quite as well.
Having said all that, much of the point of the tariffs is to incentivize US companies to reshore. Foreign governments have far fewer levers on them. Perhaps the most controlling of them could try to forcibly stop sales of their factories, etc. But those are the kinds of dirigiste countries (eg India) unlikely to be letting US companies operate in the first place.
"It also risks breaching international trade norms and provoking retaliation."
Well, agree or disagree with Trump, I think everyone can agree he doesn't think much of many norms.
And provoking retaliation is part of what he's trying to do. Many people have described the parade of horribles that happens to American when the US puts an import tariff on whatever product. Ok, I will grant that to you arguendo. So suppose another country - Bobistan - puts a retaliatory tariff on some US widget or commodity. That exact parade of horribles happens in Bobistan, to the Bobistanis. If they were buying the US widget in any significant quantity, they now are paying a higher price, any Bobistani industries that depend on that widget to make their products are incurring higher costs, and the Bobistani consumer winds up with a higher cost of living. Maybe Bobistani widget producers are incentivized to start making the widget there, but it will take time - especially if Bobistan has lots of regulations and other barriers to industrial innovation. So yes, Bobistan can retaliate, but it is going to hurt them. It's a game of chicken, and Trump thinks Bobistan will blink first.
Just some thoughts. Thank you for engaging at the level of ideas.
JSM
and markets were down about a year and half, while employment was substandard
JSM--another effect is that East Bobistani, which does not subsidize widgets and which does not impose significant tariffs on the US, can take advantage and significantly increase its production and sale of widgets to the US.
If you consider the tariff rates as an opening salvo intended to spur sequential negotiations, rather than permanent, it makes a certain amount of sense to simply prioritize those negotiations from the standpoint of the other countries by linking the tariff amount to the trade deficit percentage with each respective country.
Oil prices are back to the level that Biden inherited them in 2021.
Boatbuilder: "East Bobistani, which does not subsidize widgets and which does not impose significant tariffs on the US, can take advantage and significantly increase its production and sale of widgets to the US."
True, I guess that is something that could encourage Trump to blink first, if he wants to protect the US widget industry specifically. And/or the Bobistanis might blink because they can't bear to see those splittist East Bobistanis succeed at anything.
Your corollary also raises the issue of just what sort of trade is Trump after? He wants "fair trade" in the sense that whatever other countries get to do, we get to do. Does he want that regulatory arms race to equilibrate into something like fully "free trade?" No. He wants us to make, grow, or extract strategically critical things here: medicines, strategic metals, chips, etc, even if Ricardo screams in pain from his mausoleum. And he wants American citizens to have well-paying industrial and industrial-adjacent jobs, to start a virtuous cycle in which we pay more for products our fellow Americans make and vice versa, so we all have a higher standard of living in purchasing-power terms, whatever the nominal prices settle out to be.
If anything, tariff 'chaos' might incentivize US businesses to reshore once and be done, just because some fluctuating price disadvantages are better than wild pendulum swings of off- and on-shoring as the country oscillates between MAGA and globalist regimes.
JSM
My read of the proverbial tea leaves is that Trump and his cohort believe in spheres of influence and realpolitik—fundamentally. They also do not believe in the desirability, feasibility and sustainability of global hegemony and a unipolar world dominated by the U.S.
Israel must dominate the Middle East, China can the far East, Russia can their region to the extent Europe resists but the U.S. will backstop with a nuclear umbrella any Russia attempt to go into Poland for example.
They see U.S. security as being synonymous with industrial capacity and might. During a Hoover institute interview with Niall Ferguson the following startling fact was made.
In 1941 the U.S. had 7 aircraft carriers and Japan 11. In 1945 the U.S. had 28 main aircraft carriers and 71 support aircraft carriers and Japan 4 severely damaged vessels. Today China’s shipbuilding capacity is 230x the U.S. steel and industrial might are critical to security along with chips and other Tech.
They also don’t believe in the U.S. reserve currency and see its benefits being outweighed by the deficits and excessively strong dollar. Export competitiveness is essential to industrial self reliance.
If TSMC didn’t produce the vast majority of global advanced chips Trump would already have made a deal for reunification on the same rationale as he uses for Greenland and Panama and why he says he “understands how Russia feels” when a borderlands nation threatens their strategic interests ( akin to Cuba 1962 and many other examples).
It’s so wildly ambitious though to be near reckless. They clearly haven’t got a risk person on Board to moderate the risks and consider mitigates in the downside scenario - apart from consolidating power to resort to full authoritarianism.
If they get lucky and stay in control it will be obviously the most significant change in the world order in our lifetimes.
If they don’t, and they lose control of their own economy and democracy or lose their power over those they are attempting to negotiate with, it’s scary to think of the consequences.
Kak: "If [Trump & co] lose control of their own economy and democracy or lose their power over those they are attempting to negotiate with, it’s scary to think of the consequences."
Now that is genuinely intriguing. Can you elaborate? If Trump fails, wouldn't things just go back to the status quo ante? Or has he destabilized things so much already that we can't go back, and whatever new equilibrium results will be horrible? Or are you saying that there is indeed something wrong with that status quo ante - but that Trump has the wrong ideas about how to fix it?
JSM
A bonafide S BAG I LOVE THE TROOPS! (bullshit) The bodies of the U.S. soldiers who died in Lithuania were recovered this week after authorities dug their armored vehicle out of a peat bog in Lithuania. The soldiers were identified as Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28; Jose Duenez Jr., 25; Edvin F. Franco, 25; and Dante D. Taitano, 21.
The four soldiers, who were part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were on a tactical training exercise then they were reported missing on March 25. Their vehicle was found the following day submerged in water, and it took days to pull it out.
Lithuania's President Gitanas Nausėda attended a departure ceremony on Thursday to honor the soldiers, as hearses carried their bodies to Vilnius airport to be flown to the U.S. for burial.
Lawyer Tristen Snell wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Trump "abandons fallen soldiers, goes golfing instead."
He added: "This evening Trump was supposed to meet the families of 4 fallen US soldiers as their coffins return from Lithuania where they were killed in an accident. He canceled. Instead he dined with Saudi golf execs and sponsors for a golf tournament at one of his resorts."
Presidents do not always attend these events but not because they would rather go golfing.In memory of my Veterans hero's who I helped bury and honor and in disgust of this criminal perp especially as a so called president. Sickening. Same guy who calls our heros suckers and losers!.
Thank you for a great conversation!!
We need to think through what's coming ahead and how we're going to deal with the fallout from it. What it means is that it's really hard to get back to where you were at the start. That was the lesson of the Great Recession: people's skills atrophy, and they become afraid to invest.
No one invests during a recession, and when no one invests, investment collapses, making the recession worse. It's really hard to dig yourself out of this situation. If you're not going to use any type of state action to counterbalance it and instead say, "Bring it on, because we want to break things and purge the system," then there are two ways of looking at this.
The world can be divided into people who think the economy can get into trouble, and if the state doesn't step in to stop it, it's a one-way road all the way down. Then there are those who think, "No, absolutely not. Let's break things, and when we do, there'll be a huge amount of growth afterwards." We're making a bet, one way or the other, on what's going to happen.
Poopyboy has thoughts.
Kak come in for a lot of mockery and derision around here, but I think his summation of what Trump is attempting and the risks involved is very astute. The risks are real and significant. I'm not one for all-in bets myself, but I'm not the one playing this hand. It will be interesting to watch this unfold.
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