704 karma · joined June 4, 2018
My joy and my purpose is to help those around me and to get the feedback that they appreciate it. My purpose is to earn money so my wife can do the things she loves and not have to worry about working, so my mom's health is looked after and so, at some point, I can go do something that brings me peace.
The dictionary definition of "observe" is to notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant.
By that definition the word observation in the title and text is completely legitimate and used correctly.
- Tariffs are not a lever, they distort risk tolerance.
- Tariffs are crude, they are like a huge hammer hitting everyone, including allies
- Tariffs cause loss of confidence and loss of credit
To (2):
- Blanket tariffs target allies; they're isolating us and we're creating blocks polarized to us and weaning themselves off our economic output.
- Tariffs only reduce dependency if there is internal capacity, of which there is none. We'll best case shift our dependency via third-party countries
- We're concentrating our risk on fewer countries where tariffs are lower
To (3):
- We're reducing our efficiency and increasing prices, job losses are coming, productivity will stagnate. We're reducing our agility and our headroom
- Historically, autarky has lead to stagnation.
The economic consensus against these tariffs is real. It's exceedingly likely the US will destroy its economy, alienate itself and isolate itself because of them :)
I work in a semiconductor company, at a fairly high technical level but I'm no superstar.