Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
15d ago
Here’s an anecdote: I was 80% of the way through writing a giant post on the Abrego Garcia kerfuffle. I stopped when I realized that the absurd straw premise that I was arguing against — the idea that the core function of the US-Mexico border wall, Customs and Border Patrol, ICE, etc. is to be a gigantic obstacle course that weeds out the weaklings and ensures that only the strongest and most determined migrants survive to enter the heartland of The United States — is actually literally true. The extant US immigration system makes absolutely no sense unless you accept that the purpose of it is not to do any of the things people say it is for, but instead is the thing that it actually does.
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
Wait, nostalgia? Is your inner monologue not composed of at least 20% Leonard Nimoy Civ IV quotes?
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
I don’t think it’s out of the question that a judge could rule that deportation to the current El Salvador regime is a per se violation of the convention against torture.
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
"Oh, we are sorry your honor, we honestly thought that you had authorized that no-knock raid against that (suspected) Tesla-burning terrorist. Anyhow, now he is dead, so there is nothing we can do about that misunderstanding. All's well that ends well, I guess."
Obviously the court doesn’t have jurisdiction to bring people back from the dead. Perhaps that case is instructive. Maybe the proper remedy is to find the officer who screwed-up and charge him with kidnapping?
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
Alright, I’m crossing the streams.
We need to take the regulatory shackles off of AMERICAN correctional institutions instead of shipping our prisoners overseas for cheap. Our national security is at risk if we don’t have a vibrant and flourishing prison industrial base. We cannot entrust foreign nations with our incarceratory needs forever.
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
I’m actually not sure. He is a Salvadorian National and a suspected gang member. The Bukele government might want him in jail anyways.
Quantumfreakonomics
16d ago
The crux of the Abrego Garcia controversy is a dispute about who "morally" counts as an American citizen.
I’m not so sure that fits this particular case (it’s a better match for Mahmoud Khalil IMO). I think the deeper controversy is about what level of process is necessary to permanently remove someone from US jurisdiction.
Trump has dropped plenty of hints that he is thinking about sending American citizens to El Salvador prisons.
Quantumfreakonomics
18d ago
We did it Reddit!
Quantumfreakonomics
18d ago
The mods are a lot harder on top-level posts than they are on replies. I get the impression that this is a considered policy on their part, but it does have side-effects
Quantumfreakonomics
19d ago
The top comment is the correct synthesis in my opinion.
I thought the meaning was more something like “the system took these side effects into account and still considered that what it was doing was net positive in expectation, so the side effects are as much part of the system's purpose as the ‘positive’ outcomes”.
I take Scott's objection that this is a trivially obvious insight for what it is, but you do see a decent amount of "if only the Tsar knew"-type thinking in the wild and the phrase is a good counter to that.
Quantumfreakonomics
20d ago
If ICE detention facilities are full, then via the pigeonhole principle any foreigners being required to enter the country increases the number of people on the loose.
Quantumfreakonomics
20d ago
Read literally, the original order requires the government to send in SEAL Team 6 to perform an extraction operation at CECOT in the event the Salvadorian government doesn’t hand him over in time.
I suppose a court could order the government to request Abrego Garcia back and to stop paying El Salvador to detain him, but beyond that I’m not really sure what they can do.
Quantumfreakonomics
20d ago
What is current public opinion in China like regarding the tariffs? Are Americans public enemy number 1 yet?
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
I get a sensible chuckle every time I see how the retail trading apps have managed to turn the mandatory risk disclosures into a, “you must be at least this cool to trade options 😎, “ button.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
Now of course the explanation is obvious
You’re right. The answer is obvious.
they're doing it as a dig on trump.
No, it’s because futures exchanges are open longer hours than stock exchanges. If you want to know what the market thinks of recent news that broke while the stock market was closed, you look at the futures market.
Quantumfreakonomics
21d ago
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
I can sort of understand if you didn’t think about the semantic content of what you wrote, but there’s a baseline level of general quantitative knowledge that one needs to know in order to meaningfully partake in discussions of civic importance. The all-inclusive annual cost of having an employee in a first-world country is about $50,000 - $100,000. The US military has a lot more than 15,000 active duty personnel. You don’t have to know anything about how much ships, tanks, or planes cost to know that $892 million will not come close to covering US military expenses.
Like, if you saw a headline tomorrow saying, “Trump to buy Greenland for 50 trillion dollars”, you should know immediately that that isn’t true. Even if Trump said those words, that would be orders of magnitude more than anyone has ever paid for anything ever.
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
He came up with the funds to buy Twitter.
He did. This was
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Only $44 billion instead of $100 billion,
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Also collateralized by the value of Twitter itself as an asset, and
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The banks which financed the deal lost money, making Musk a less-than-desirable customer in the future.
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
He took out a $45 billion credit line
That is not what the paragraph you cited means. He has $45 billion worth of Tesla stock pledged as collateral. That doesn’t mean he can borrow $45 billion USD against that collateral.
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
Elon does not have $100 billion in liquidity, nor does he have the capability of generating $100 billion in liquidity over a 1-year period. Even if a sucker bank could be found, a healthy financial regulatory apparatus would immediately step in to prevent massive systemic risk.
Quantumfreakonomics
22d ago
Even if all trade barriers (including the nonsensical things he includes as trade barriers) are completely gone, there is no easy way for say, Australia to force their businesses to start buying more American made products.
Think outside the box. Zero is not the lowest number. Australia could put a negative 20% tariff on all American imports, directly paying American manufacturers to ship their products to Australia.
Is this flat-out extortion? Yes. But the mechanisms for enforcement are already in place. Just change the sign in the relevant Excel templates.
Quantumfreakonomics
23d ago
The market went up after this announcement IIRC. 50% on top of the already existing and already announced tariffs is almost too absurd to take seriously, bayesian evidence that Trump is bluffing.
Quantumfreakonomics
23d ago
There is some precedent (arising from the Guantanamo Bay detainees) that people held in a foreign country on behalf of the United States can still pursue relief in US courts.
Wasn't the key fact in those cases the fact that the United States had physical command and control over the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center? It doesn't seem immediately applicable to the Salvadorian prison situation. Is there any precedent for the United States sending prisoners to foreign countries? That seems like the more interesting novelty to me.
What is there to say? Trumpism is being exposed. Beyond that, democracy itself is being exposed. Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.
I’m not against the idea of a penal colony, but sending prisoners into the hands of foreign sovereigns is inherently risky.
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