Solving the Tariff Mystery?

No Just eating lunch...

Despite a the 'formula' for determining tariffs waved around by the administration, it's really just a shiny object designed to impress us with how smart they are, when actually, once one fights one's way through the  unnecessary Greek letters, the formula is quite simple. Reciprocal tariff=trade deficit divided by imports. Oh, and it's not reciprocal because nothing in the formula, even the one with all the Greek letters, represents tariffs or any trade barriers levied on U.S. exports.

If one asks Chat GPT calculate  best way to calculate a tariff on another country to get the balance of trade to zero, it comes up with this exact formula. I'm not quite sure how that works with an island whose inhabitants is penguins. It also says, " revenue matching tariffs are likely to lead to economic inefficiency, international backlash and serious harm to the superpower's own economy and global trade system"

Well, they got that part right. The stock market is diving while the man plays golf. Apparently he didn't decide on a plan until three hours before his much trumpeted announcement.

The inverter for our solar panels is defective. It's still under warranty so they will bring a new one and install it, but not until the end of the month. Jim and David came over last evening to do a little trouble shooting. They 'got something to change' but it didn't fix it. I found John along with the two of them out on the porch enjoying various beverages and decided to join them. It's the first time this season we've sat out there and it was quite pleasant.

Henrietta is back! She has left her pack? gang? gaggle? of turkey friends and returned to the porch from which she can survey the seeds on the ground underneath the bird feeders. She's actually got some beautiful feathers, but even those can't overcome her tiny bald head and scaly neck, which was all we could see of her as she hopped down to the ground below the porch, popping her head up above the level of the deck from time to time.

We had another beautiful day today, but there is a chance of showers tomorrow. If I put the covers back on the porch furniture, it won't rain,  but if I leave them off, it will rain for sure.