Wall Street Journal (November 9)
“President Trump has a big tariff problem: His border taxes are raising prices on tariffed goods, they’re unpopular with voters, and the Supreme Court might rule that his “emergency” tariffs are illegal.” To win back support, he has just promised “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.” This latest “hail Mary” is founded on, among other logical fallacies, a “contradiction that Mr. Trump can both pay a tariff rebate and pay down the national debt.” The WSJ editorial board has “advised Mr. Trump from the beginning that tariffs would do economic harm, and so they are.”
Tags: 2000, Border taxes, Contradiction, Dividend, Economic harm, Emergency, Illegal, Logical fallacies, National debt, Prices, Rebate, Supreme Court, Tariff, Trump, Unpopular, Voters
The Economist (January 2)
“Already things have turned nasty. Donald Trump has not even got to the White House, and his raucous court of advisers have rounded on each other.” This marks only the beginning of “a clash of cultures” as tech invades Washington. Tech’s “worldview is strikingly at odds with the maga movement.” Yet, it is possible that “out of Trumpian chaos and contradiction, something good might just emerge.“
Tags: Advisers, Chaos, Clash of cultures, Contradiction, Maga, Nasty, Raucous, Tech, Trump, Washington, White House, Worldview
Bloomberg (March 25)
A recent poll showed that “only 11.3 percent of Chinese had a favorable opinion of Japan.” Nevertheless, “Chinese tourists can’t seem to get enough of Japan.” This apparent contradiction may be explained by the fact that only five percent of Chinese travel overseas. Still, there “is reason to hope that China’s growing wave of outbound tourists will serve as a force for openness and tolerance—if only so they’ll have somewhere good to shop.”
