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I mean, I get that, but I don't.
Like, I get that if we're talking about a court case. Diving into the minutia of which legal arguments the Supreme Court will agree with, and which justices will go which way. Less so when it comes to individual court cases, like Rittenhouse, although I understand they are good drama and lightning rods for the culture war. I certain dove all in on some of them.
I get it when it comes to hot conflicts like Ukraine and Russia, and debating tactics, strategy and capabilities. Especially because reality quickly asserts itself.
The tariff discussion though... all I know is that all the same talking heads who've been wrong about everything insist tariff's will destroy the economy. They quote that the last time we did this was 100 years ago, and that simultaneously that's how we know it's a terrible idea, but also that the world has changed so much tariffs won't work like they used to when Trump brags about how great they were 100 years ago.
Fact of the matter is, Trump is a singular figure in history. He doesn't compare to anyone else. As well, these tariffs, coming from him, with the state of the world being what it is, is a singular moment in history that cannot be compared to any other. 10 years from now, some people might rise to the top as "having been right about the Trump tariffs". Some of them might have even done so on purpose! But I would also not be shocked if they lead to outcomes nobody predicts and nobody gets it completely, or even half right. You might as well be arguing about the next number at the craps table.
I haven't been taking my opinions on the tariffs from talking heads. It just seems evident to me from first principles that the tariffs are more likely to hurt me than help me. I can't think of any way in which they could possibly help me. I don't want to work in manufacturing and I don't care about increasing US national security from its current level of "almost completely impregnable" to "so ridiculously impregnable that it's hard to imagine it being much more impregnable, barring the invention of effective anti-nuke defenses".
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Ok, but until he climbed down the expert consensus was exactly right on what the reaction of the markets would be.
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I struggle with economic discussion in general because
A. I know almost nothing about economics and what I do know makes the entire system seem like a massive fraud i.e. it's a ponzi scheme when I do it but they're treasury bonds when the feds do it
B. The kinds of people who are able to discourse about economics are overwhelmingly PMC and will represent PMC interests and when economics are discussed at all then what is considered to be "good policy" will be policy that doesn't take into consideration blue collar workers
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