@realcaseyrollins no, i’m not referring at all to quantitative easing, which is at this point ordinary and nondisruptive. i’m referring to madly scribbling and rescribbling tariffs, negotiating in ways that even usually reserved allies describe as extortion, generally behaving in ways that abruptly convince the rest of the world they don’t want to hold US paper. that might be good for trade balance, could even drive us into surplus! but via a miserably disruptive path.
it would be better if the stock market crashes us into a consensus to impeach and remove before the dollar and US Treasuries are permanently discredited.
@akkartik @haitchfive @coaxial you enforce balance on the financial side, not the goods side. you make it expensive for people to hold your country’s paper (treasuries, private debt, stock, whatever). so exporters, who initially earn paper, are incentivized to redeem them back for goods and services. 1/
@akkartik @haitchfive @coaxial you don’t discriminate between countries or goods (while enforcing balance, there may be other industrial-policy / resilience / national-security overlays to consider). unbalanced trade is paid for with promises. let markets decide what it’s important to buy and sell. 2/
@akkartik @haitchfive @coaxial but if foreigners (in aggregate, swapping amongst themselves) won’t hold your paper in great quantities or for very long, then what you can buy will be tethered closely to what you sell. 3/
@akkartik @haitchfive @coaxial (a party that sells to you, holds paper briefly, then directly or swapping to some other party buys stuff back from you with your own paper should be experience very little penalty. a party that holds your paper should bear a penalty proportional to time. that’s what a “foreign payouts tax” delivers. transactional lending to lubricate commerce is fine. portfolio accumulation, long-term holdings, are penalized.) /fin
if AI writes the law, what was the legislative intent?
[new draft post] Keynesian compromise https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/04/20/keynesian-compromise/index.html
@haitchfive @akkartik insisting on bilateral balance becomes similar to barter. countries can only trade when they have a double coincidence of wants.
imposing an overall near-balance constraint for each country with rest-of-world adds a huge range of degrees of freedom, ways markets can discover to, say, buy semiconductors from taiwan and sell coffee to australia which sells iron to taiwan, etc.
it's weird that about the same time of year jews and christians celebrate the unrisen and risen respectively.
@akkartik I really should have re-emphasized the point in this one… in my head they're a series but it's been almost three weeks, so several mayfly lifetimes.
@haitchfive @akkartik the key point is that Trump is trying to pursue balance in *bilateral trade relationships* which is incoherent and super-restrictive of meaningful trade.
the sensible policy is to require each country to be in *overall balance* with the rest-of-world. it is not remotely sensible to try to prevent or remedy every bilateral imbalance. if a country buys coffee from columbia but sells the same value of microchips to the US, it is in balance.
@akkartik oh, god no. please see the prior piece. https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/04/01/if-we-werent-idiots-balance-of-payments-edition/index.html
bilateral, as opposed to overall balance, is stupid to purse. tariffs are a terrible means, certainly to pursue balance (to which they are entirely ill suited), for the most part even for industrial policy (which they are better suited for and do perhaps arguably have some role).
“The phenomenon of induced demand is as real for transit as it is for highways: If you provide a more attractive service, more people will use it. If you cut service, riders will disappear.” #JonathanEnglish https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-14/the-toronto-suburb-where-the-humble-bus-is-king
Delaware, like Columbia, is learning that you just can’t appease these people.
i mean, they tried https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/elon-musk-delaware
Screenshot of a tweet in which Elon Musk writes “At this point, any lawyer recommending incorporation in Delaware is committing malpractice”
@buermann @DeanBaker13 from the piece: “I have been told very confidently by people who know the Internet much better than me that this change would either mean nothing to the huge sites (they would just hire more lawyers) and also that it would force them to adopt a subscription model where people had to pay to use their sites.”
i have a guess who “people” is there…
“Section 230: We Really Should Talk About It” by @DeanBaker13 https://cepr.net/publications/section-230/
On how the Great Depression hit Romania. Let's not do this shit again, anywhere.
by @Balutescu
https://blogulluibalutescu.blogspot.com/2025/03/marea-criza-in-romania.html
(in Romanian, Google Translate will get you there if Romanian isn't your thing.)
Great paragraphs from @jamellebouie.net to have on hand next time you find yourself conversing with the MAGA-pilled. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/vance-abrego-garcia-immigration.html
Text: Vance begins with a lie. “Consider that Joe Biden allowed approximately 20 million illegal aliens into our country.” That is a load-bearing “approximately,” to say the least. The U.S.-Mexico border is where the greatest number of immigrants enter the country. But according to an analysis by FactCheck.org, from 2021 to 2024 Customs and Border Patrol officers stationed there released 2.5 million people into the United States, with notices to report to immigration authorities for further hearings and processing, out of 6.5 million “encounters” across the U.S.-Mexico border and legal ports of entry. In addition, an estimated 1.6 million people evaded law enforcement to enter the country, for a total of 4.1 million people. You may think that’s still too many. But it’s nowhere near what Vance says it is. Vance goes on to assert that this imaginary horde of “20 million illegal aliens” placed “extraordinary burdens on our country” and “committed violent crimes, or facilitated fentanyl and sex trafficking.” It’s been shown again and again that immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than citizens do. Stating otherwise is demagogic innuendo meant to short-circuit the rational mind and inflame prejudice.
i don’t think enough attention has been paid to the heroism of Senator Van Hollen. 1/
He put himself in real danger. Bukele could have locked him up on some pretext, and it’s not at all clear the US executive would have done anything about it other than smile. US courts would legit have no jurisdiction. There would just be outraged liberals. 2/
It remains unclear how Van Hollen succeeded at getting a meeting with Abrega Garcia after first having been refused. I don’t know how he pulled that rabbit from a hat, but I tip my hat and give him credit for it. 3/
Van Hollen: “If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.” Amen. /fin
@resl i agree. we in fact should welcome, construct, reinforce a multipolar world, but not one in which the poles are competing vicious powerseeking kleptocracies. it’s time to rescue liberal internationalism from its collapse into neoconservatism. https://zirk.us/@interfluidity/114347921966154291
govern so incompetently you create a real emergency, then assume extraordinary powers by declaring a state of emergency.