I recently read something Interesting comments By a basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks:
Anyway, Antetokounmpo felt weird over [former coach] Budenholzer on the other side of the court, given that they were strong allies in Milwaukee for five seasons.
“It’s absolutely strange,” said Giannis. “Seeing him complaining about plays that I do, charges, push-offs, and all that, and it is the things he loved when I did it when we were in the same team and won a championship together.
“He loved when I did, but now I play against him.
At one level this is a bit funny, because we all understand that coaches are not looking for the truth, they are like lawyers who argue for their clients. They are more interested in winning than in determining whether or not a certain action was an error. But I do understand how this tone change would feel “weird”, because in the heat of the struggle we tend to feel that we are on the right and the reality often interpreted through that lens.
David Hume once said: “Reason is the slave of the passions.” Many people decide what they want and then look for reasons to justify their actions. Consider the case of rates. Proponents of high rates often suggest that the US is abused by other countries, which they claim to have much higher rates than we are. In fact, our most important trading partners usually even have slightly lower rates than the US. If we took ‘mutual rates’, this would mean Lowering tariff rates With our most important trading partners.
Nationalists will often mention a few individual rates abroad that are much higher than the equivalent tariff percentage in the US, with the prospect of the fact that we also have some individual trade barriers that are much higher than those of our trading partners. David Henderson Is also skeptical about claims that these are mutual rates.
In one Recent PostI suggested that the rates of around $ 100 billion in Canadian and Mexican cars would represent one of the largest tax increases in history. Today’s announcement is much greater, maybe $ 400 billion – although I can’t be sure, because the rates will also influence the amount of import. In any case, it would certainly be the largest tax increase in American history, even in real terms, although as a part of GDP the World War IIs were probably larger.
It is too early to predict the economic impact, because President Trump’s rate announcements are often adjusted after negotiations. Moreover, the effect also depends on the monetary policy reaction. If inflation is the target of 2%, a recession can occur. If the monetary policy is adjusted to prevent a recession, we would probably get higher inflation.