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Does anyone have any idea what the deal is with the numbers on that chart he produced (x.com/sentdefender/stat…)? I genuinely thought that Trump conflated VATs with tariffs (they aren't because they are also assessed on domestically produced products, but they "feel like" a tariff because they are assessed on products upon import) and th…
Does anyone have any idea what the deal is with the numbers on that chart he produced (https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1907533597839675892?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet)? I genuinely thought that Trump conflated VATs with tariffs (they aren't because they are also assessed on domestically produced products, but they "feel like" a tariff because they are assessed on products upon import) and that much of his world view came from this belief. The thing is that his "tariffs charged to the US" number on the chart has a poor relationship with the VAT and is sometimes a lot lower.
I am open to "all of these numbers are fake and he is going based on his vibes about countries". Way too many numbers are 10% for this to be totally real. But I wonder what is going on here.
The numbers are made up. I don't know about the extent to which they were made up by using some nonsense formula vs. made up by just writing numbers down, but I don't think it really matters.
This chart is fascinating. The Falklands will be charged a much higher rate than the UK, but Svalbard will get a lower rate than Norway.
They asked Dan Ariely to gather the data.
Deep cut for those of us who read way too many substacks and actually read some of these wonky books.
Gotta say, I was at least partially taken in like Obama was. I think I wanted to believe there was “one weird trick” to getting people to wash their hands more or get people to save more for retirement.
The thing is, I still think “people are predictably irrational” is substantially correct (see my comment above about traders/hedge fund managers irrationally believing Trump was bluffing about tariffs). Think behavioral economics has a lot to recommend. So it makes it all the more galling to see Ariely made up his data because (as far as I can tell) he’s just that committed to libertarianism.