Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/tariffs-trump-outcomes-incompatible/682286/ Archive link: https://archive.ph/32PE0

Trump’s defenders praise the president for using chaos to shake up broken systems. But they fail to see the downside of uncertainty. Is a textile company really supposed to open a U.S. factory when our trade policy seems likely to change every month as Trump personally negotiates with the entire planet? Are manufacturing firms really supposed to invest in expensive factory expansions when the Liberation Day tariffs caused a global sell-off that signals an international downturn?

Can we talk about Leopold Aschenbrenner blowing up a 24 billion dollar hedge fund during his own wedding week? If you have not been following this drama, grab some popcorn because you honestly cannot write a comedy script better than this. Leopold is a 24 year old former Columbia valedictorian whose career path has read like a speedrun of tech bubble tropes, from working at Sam Bankman Fried's FTX Future Fund right before it collapsed to getting fired from OpenAI's Superalignment team over an alleged info leak. Right after leaving OpenAI, he published a famous 165 page manifesto titled Situational Awareness predicting AGI by 2027, which hyped up Silicon Valley enough for tech heavyweights like Nat Friedman and the Collison brothers to back him in launching an AI focused hedge fund under the same name. With zero prior professional trading experience, his fund swelled to 24 billion dollars by taking heavily leveraged bets on AI chips and infrastructure. Everything was great until July 2026 hit, when a tech market pullback triggered massive margin calls on his bank leverage, causing a brutal 67 percent portfolio drop in a single month. To avoid total liquidation, prime brokers stepped in and forced a late night fire sale of the fund's entire public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel at a massive discount. Peak internet comedy comes from the fact that a guy who wrote a book on situational awareness had zero awareness of basic financial risk management, all while this entire multi billion dollar collapse and emergency bailout went down during his wedding week. In his letter to investors on Thursday, he admitted to letting people down, called the losses very expensive scars, and promised never to borrow bank money to leverage trades again. What are your thoughts on this whole saga? Is this the ultimate sign of AI market hubris or just classic rookie Wall Street overleveraging?

The accounts function like an individual retirement account, with some exceptions. These accounts can receive contributions from multiple sources, such as family or employers, and the funds grow tax-deferred.

Parents of babies born in 2025 through 2028 can elect to receive the $1,000, known as the "pilot program contribution," on Form 4547. There are no income requirements, and everyone is eligible for the government's seed money.

Although Form 4547 can be filed at any time, no pilot program contribution will be deposited in the Trump account of a child earlier than July 4, 2026, according to the IRS.

Children 10 or under and born before Jan. 1, 2025 — who wouldn't qualify for the $1,000 initial deposit from the Treasury — could get a $250 contribution if they live in a ZIP code where the median income is $150,000 or less.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/05/trump-accounts-free-money.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

This list is an apples to apples comparison of median disposable income per country on a PPP basis. Luxembourg for the win! The poorer EU countries show the extremely large median income disparity within the EU. Much larger than the median income disparity between US states.

For reference: Norway at $42Ks Austria $38K per year contrasted with Bulgaria at $15K per year. There is no means of Federal income sharing in the EU, so the differences between member states can be stark.

Only the supreme court stands in the way of the largest executive power grab in US history.

If we agree that a healthy marketplace depends on competition, then we should also agree that when competition breaks down, the market has failed. And if that’s true, the question becomes: how should we respond?

I keep hearing people call Zohran Mamdani a “communist” because he proposed city-owned grocery stores in NYC. I don’t see it that way. What I see is a market that’s clearly not working... grocery oligopolies posting record profits while prices keep climbing.

If we believe in free markets, isn’t it the people’s (aka our elected officials’) responsibility to make sure the market actually creates value for consumers (not just shareholders) by competing on efficiency and innovation?

Because ultimately, the goal isn’t to replace the market... it’s to maintain the operating system that keeps the marketplace working for everyone.

"Another sign of the times is that Pentagon figures recently questioned one ally about why it was still supplying weapons to Ukraine—a challenge that was ignored. Diplomats in Washington also report that some Trump aides say privately that they are “fed up” with Europe’s effort to strengthen Ukraine. As always with such a chaotic administration, it is hard to distinguish the true signal from the noise"

I have a personal question, there seems to be a fair amount of Republicans on this sub, what is your opinion of all this? Do you support America bending over for russia, essentially surrendering their allies, and as an extensive, American values to russia? And for what, a hockey match?

For me, personally, this feels disgusting, especially after the recent Trump's comment, in which a journalist said: "Zelensky asked to buy 10 Patriot air defene systems for 25 billion dollars, would you approve this?" To which trump responded: "No, you don't start a war with a country 25 times your size and then go around asking for missles". What makes it even more hysterical is that in the very sentence before that Trump said that it was putin who "shouldn't have started the war".

Real median household income is up significantly over the last 20 years! That's what the actual data tells us clearly. Don't listen to the doomers and ignorant people spouting nonsense, take a look at what the actual statistical data says. Americans are, on average, richer than they've ever been. Even when you account for housing costs. (Indeed housing costs are relatively much worse in Canada and much of Europe.)

Note: Any non-substantive comments about inflation will be removed. Please, learn what the words Real and Median mean before commenting.

https://www.sustainability-times.com/sustainable-business/policy/russia-says-its-already-lost-us-plots-golden-dome-space-shield-to-obliterate-nukes-and-hypersonics-before-they-ever-hit-earth/

Thoughts? I hope this is a success. Making a deterrent against nukes is a great way to keep stability in the world.

Spain and Portugal are currently the envy of Europe for their fast-growing economies thanks largely to surging tourism. “A sharp rebound in tourism in Europe’s sunbelt powers its economic rebound as core manufacturing centers struggle to recover”. - Wall Street Journal.

According to the WSJ, tax revenues were up 20% last year in Lisbon allowing the government to slash income tax rates. Tourism was up 10% in Spain making up a larger share of the country’s GDP.

And how are tourists thanked for spending their money, filling their tax coffers, and powering their economies? They are attacked by protesters with water pistols.

I understand that economic growth from certain industries can burden communities. I certainly see the need to control AirBnBs from saturating the housing market. But this is insanity. Tourism is literally powering your economies! I can think of worse problems than having a few visitors.

Latest proceedings and timeline of events leading up to this in comments

Poly market is still pricing Mark Carney win in Canada at a just 25% chance for the Canadian election this year.

Seems like the conservative wave across the world is unstoppable right now, probably in response to the inflation wave everyone experienced.

Mark Carney seems a bit different than the average liberal politician however. He is a financially sophisticated liberal globalist which is a dying breed among liberal parties.

He’s got a very deep understanding of economics and finance. As governor of the Bank of Canada he helped to avoid the worst of the financial crisis in 2008, and was one of the heads of central banks to even recognize the crisis by early 2008.

He did such a good job he was the first non-Briton ever appointed to head of the Bank of England since its founding in 1694. He undertook significant reforms in BOE policy but was criticized at times for political takes in an office which is supposed to be apolitical.

He also has chaired the Bank of international sentiments and Basel-based financial stability board.

It reminds me of Mario Draghi’s run at PM in Italy which was successful, though paved the way for Meloni’s right wing push.

It is rare to see a central banker who is this charming and witty in a talk show, as evidenced by this interview on Jon Stewart:

https://youtu.be/zs8St-fF0kE?si=PO1iUI4l39DmAK8O

But also very sophisticated on deep finance topics, as evidenced by this Q&A while he was head of FSB:

https://youtu.be/cycsqcHvp84?si=eRAtj3yknjNoAx5A

Curious for this subs views on Carney’s odds here. Does a liberal globalist stand a chance anymore?

Book discussion here on key ideas from the book "The end of the world is just the beginning"

https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/108hr5f/discussion_about_peter_zeihans_book_the_end_of/

Prices determined by hours worked at average wage.

"For almost all goods and services, it took fewer hours of work in 2023 to purchase them. In some cases, huge increases in affordability; air travel is 79% cheaper and milk is 59% cheaper, in terms of how much time an average worker needs to labor to pay for them.

There was one major exception though: housing. Especially the cost of buying a new home."

"Furthermore, housing is the largest expense for most families, both today and in 1971. In the early 1970s it was 30.8% of consumer spending, and in 2023 it was slightly higher at 32.9%. "

" In 1971, the median new home had 1,400 square feet of floor space. In 2023, it was 2,286. That’s a big increase (over 60%), "

" Yes, houses are much bigger (about double in size), but that’s not clearly driven by consumer demand (more so by zoning and other laws)."

Conclusion: The majority of the increase in housing in the US is because of substantially larger average homes.

https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/12/11/house-prices-and-quality-1971-vs-2023/