Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
10hr ago
Assuming for a moment that the purpose of tariffs is to shift consumer spending away from foreign imports and towards domesticly manufactured products,
Shouldn't you want retailers to break-out the tariff cost into a seperate legible line item?
A story broke this morning that Amazon was going to start labeling products with the tariff charged on each item to make the price changes legible to the consumer. From the perspective of a protectionist economic policy, this is a good thing. It makes it unignorably clear which items are made in China and which items are made in America. It also shows the direct monetary incentive for you the consumer to but the Made in America item over the Made in China item.
From the perspective of whatever the hell the Trump administration is trying to do, this is a disaster. I understand that governments would prefer the populace not be particularly mindful of how much money they pay in taxes, but it is another thing alltogether to hear this articulated by the press secretary as something that they think makes the administration look good to the public. The official line from the MAGA infuencer types on Twitter is that retailers are doing this as a distraction from the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops, but this is actually highlighting the fact that they sell cheap slop from Asian sweatshops.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these,
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
Also, why does nobody talk about building the wall anymore? The one thing that the recent kerfuffles over deportations have shown is that it’s inherently a nightmare to kick people out of the country. You have procedural hurdles which can theoretically be removed, but there’s also significant reliance interests which can’t be removed. A wall wouldn’t have this problem.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
I sort of agree with you. Fundamentally, this is inconsequential internet bullshit. I probably wouldn’t have made the post if I hadn’t seen Cremieux bragging about how much money he makes from these threads during the controversy.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
He was just picked up by the Browns. Poor guy...
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Even assuming he really is that good (which, to be clear, is doubtful), his father Deion Sanders has followed him as coach his whole career. There is no upside to picking him if you're the head coach of a football team. Either he sucks, or he's good and he uses his leverage to get you fired and bring in Deion.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Is community drama Friday Fun?
Rationalist-adjacent blogger Dinomight is accusing rationalist-adjacent Twitter poaster Cremieux of plaigerizing his post on aspertame into a popular Twitter thread. This has now escalated to wall-of-text denounciations, involving characters such as LessWrong admins and our old friend TracingWoodgrains.
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
I really think its the former. Trump saw a particular law that granted a particular power, sitting there dusty and unused in the warehouse of executive authority, and reached over and pulled the lever to activate it. But it has always been sitting there, he didn't invent it or wrest it from Congress or the Courts.
No it isn't. There was a separate law that was passed at about the same time as the Alien Enemies Act that really did give the president the power to do what Trump did. That law is no longer in effect.
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
I mean, the facts bore out that this was an operation conducted in hostile territory. They really did need the help.
Prosecuting under §1071 is even more of an uphill battle. Everything I could find suggests that it only applies to criminal warrants, such as the diffeing penalties for whether the concealed person is being charged with a felony or a misdemeanor.
Why? The text of the statute refers to "any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States". The text seems pretty broad. Any valid federal warrant must be issued under the provisions of a law of the United States right? Or am I missing something?
EDIT: Also, wouldn't 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(3) apply? Does having ICE agents show up and present an administrative warrant count as knowledge or reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law?
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
The FBI this morning arrested a Wisconsin state judge on charges of concealing an illegal alien from arrest.
The initial criminal complaint is here. For those of you who prefer to watch TV instead of read, here is attorney general Pam Bondi giving the details on Fox News. The accusation is that upon seeing federal agents waiting outside her courtroom to serve an administrative warrent for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz (who is an illegal alien currently being charged with battery), Judge Hannah Dugan escorted Flores-Ruiz out of the courtroom through the jury door so that he could evade arrest.
For all of the "Kash Patel Arrests Judge" headlines I saw this morning, this seems totally fine? It looks like an open and shut case if the facts alleged in the complaint are true. It sounds like there ought to be plenty of witnesses (it literally took place in a courthouse). State-law judges don't have jurisdiction over federal agents executing federal functions. An illegal alien in court for an unrelated violent crime is an incredibly unsympathetic defendant. All of the smarter left-leaning commentators I follow seem to be keeping quiet on this, which seems smart.
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
How else are middle managers supposed to feel important if not by holding fancy conference calls where they get to say, “New York on the line”?
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
Options and futures markets are in Chicago.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
How are things in South Africa since they ended segregation?
Better than the counterfactual scenerio for the black residents, worse than the counterfactual scenerio for the white residents?
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
I know that the county conceded that they would allow an opt-out for a Muslim student to not look at an image of Muhammad, but is that constitutionally required? I can imagine a hypothetical school district (backed by state law) deciding to use a picture book to teach kids about the Arab conquests. If Muslim parents complain? Tough shit. This is the kind of thing that makes school administration a nightmare.
It may be worth pointing out that coverage from outlets like NPR didn't include the name of the case or a description of the plaintiffs that brought it.
I don’t think this is because they are trying to hide who is suing here. News editing just sucks. I think the idea is that nobody wants to read a news article with a bunch of legal citations, so we end up with headlines like “Elon Musk’s DOGE Delt Legal Blow by Federal Judge”, when the substantive legal issue is that their motion to change venue was denied.
I don't think Amazon is angry at Trump. I think Amazon is angry at tariffs for the exact same reason that consumers are angry at tariffs. They aren't using this as some proxy conflict to get back at MAGA. They want to cut costs and lower prices.
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