https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/business/china-manufacturing-exports-trump-tariffs.html
“China is using more factory robots than the rest of the world combined …. factory output is bigger than the combined manufacturing of the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain.”
But
“housing market crash since 2021 has wiped out much of the savings of the middle class and ruined many wealthy families.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/06/signal-group-chat-leak-how-it-happened
So funny. Done in by Apple being helpful. I bet that mistake happens fairly often.
Also, of course, why there are processes and tools around secure technologies to prevent errors like this.
This gets to the root of our true gov problems: “White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely because there is no alternative platform to text in real time across different agencies”
“While that tariff will hit every container of unprocessed products clearing customs, trucking, processing, warehousing and retailers’ costs here need not change.”
So a 10% tariff, even if borne entirely by Americans, may be significantly less than a 10% price increase. Good stuff in here.
“Given years to adjust to the new tariffs, seasonal vegetable production and canning could again be important in these mid-Atlantic states, although many farm fields have become suburbs.”
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/04/06/last-week-on-my-mac-sequoia-spring/
I’m waiting a few weeks on this one. With this many undocumented changes a 15.4.1 can’t be far away. Many changes, however, are more about preparing for macOS 16.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/us/canada-tariffs-billboards-pittsburgh-pennsylvania.html
“billboards aren’t paid for by an industry trade group or a political action committee, but rather by the sovereign (for now) government of Canada, a point that is noted in the not-so-fine print.”
I loved the “for now” there.
https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/fascism
Steves is best known for his chipper and very efficient guided tours of European museums and destinations. His voice guided my daughter and I through the Vatican museum in about 3 hours(!).
He applies this method to a MAGA-inspired tour of fascism. It’s engaging, brilliant, and wicked.
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/as-savings-crater-social-security
“SSA said that 40 percent of direct deposit fraud occurred via calls to the agency. That is wholly different, and massively less, than 40 percent of calls being fraudulent.”
The way to break social security is to degrade services. As Musk is doing. (Caveat: SSA has pretty bad software. It could be improved with time, money, and thought.)
Ben Franklin’s slaves fade away.
Trump loyalists advancing the MAGA agenda, as Project 2025 planned. Fear of job loss drove more expansive revisions.
Fear is the key.
This, dear NYT, is how you cover madness. I like how Thompson listed 3 incompatible post-hoc justifications from Team Trump.
Across the world migrating to apps has made it harder for non-locals to visit. I wonder if Apple is thinking about this ..
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/a-trade-warfor-what
This essay assumes the US doesn’t invade Greenland or turn Canada into an American colony. Bernstein further assumes rational responses to the trade wars. Given those assumptions, what lies ahead for Americans is merely recession, growing misery, and general decline for decades to come.
Solid reference.
Twitter goes down and the world is briefly a better place. SSA goes down and vulnerable people suffer.
(This morning the site went down as we tried to document our disabled son’s income.)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/youre-not-crazy-america-has-gone-mad/
1. If sociology and anthropology had not died in the 1980s we might have been monitoring our society and culture and anticipated collapse.
2. Without falsifiability an industrial civilization cannot endure.
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/there-are-no-adults-in-the-room
“Who is the president listening to on policy? What are the possible faultlines…”
There is a standard policy outline they follow. They have been writing the same template for decades. Now it doesn’t work but they can’t stop.
“even the robber barons were not that bad; at least they endowed some libraries and foundations and fellowships and had some idea of wanting to pretend to some sort of cultural capital. But here, at this moment, we are in a regime with these billionaires who seem unaccountable to anyone”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-stepping-back-dont-bet-on-it
Well argued by Josh. He is on the tiger now.
Musk is too wealthy to face justice — under our old standards. But there is a narrow chance American democracy survives return to the justice standards of years gone by. Then he faces prison time.
https://fallows.substack.com/p/launching-the-economic-version-of
Readable and solid.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/trump-tariffs-political-capital/682274/
Americans may now learn authoritarian rule is not all as much fun as it sounds. (Maybe.)
Which would give human civilization better survival odds.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/business/dealbook/trump-tariffs-europe-response.html
“anti-coercion instrument”.
I genuinely appreciated Joe Biden and said so often.
https://www.mobilize.us/moveon/event/766084/
What we do now.
https://gwynnedyer.com/2025/three-hours-in-greenland/
Cancel your vacation plans, you will be spending that money and time on your protest marches.
https://www.aeaweb.org/research/ordeals-selection-health-insurance
Nice study. Huge effect for relatively minor hassle. America “funds” many “benefits” by adding hassles. Checks the social safety net box.
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/04/01/xai-acquires-x-twitter/
Hiding the body.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-1-2025
Best coverage of the speech.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/stop-looking-for-methods-in-the-madness
Somewhere there are dreams and visions. In the heads of Musk and Miller certainly. But they do not agree even before they are thrown into the chaotic blender of Trump’s dying rotted brain.
Sociopaths or brats? Bad parenting or just bad luck?
“If a senior Trump appointee told me it was raining, I would first stick my head out the window for confirmation, and second make sure that they weren’t just pissing on my shoes.”
https://leancrew.com/all-this/2025/04/a-macos-18-4-walpaper-bug/
I’ll wait for 18.4.1. If they broke this there are likely bigger problems.
If Trump can invade Greenland he will.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/world/asia/bangladesh-islam.html
Bangladesh has done far better than was expected in the 1980s. Now everything is at risk.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-note-on-trade-deficits-and-manufacturing
The slow death of rural America is one of several contributors to the collapse of the GOP and the rise of MAGA. Globalization and IT are two others.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-make-an-idol-out-of-donald-trumps-will
Forget about Trump III.
https://musgrave.substack.com/p/the-social-science-of-ramadan
But happiness increases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bruce
18th century Scot, best known for first euro to trace Nile to Ethiopia. Fun wikipedia bio.
“presently returning to the desert to recover his journals and his baggage, which had been abandoned in consequence of the death of all his camels”
If true this is Trump-class stupid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/business/economy/wealth-cash-inequality.html
The article notes much wealth growth is not liquid – including home equity. So it overstates prosperity for many. Decreases in cash balances a hint.
I am happy at least some experts are asking the important “why”.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/
This site shows up a lot in Perplexity reasoning chains. It’s funded by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and was launched in 2015.
Their blog has no feed. So they aren’t terribly bright. Still interesting.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/03/marrying-down-wife-education-hypogamy/682223/
Some of the examples are wealthy small businessmen with no degree. Which is NOT a real change.
But there are signs of hope. Women are just smarter (on average).
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/politics/trump-south-africa-white-afrikaners-refugee.html
About 8,000 requests so far.
https://openai.com/index/introducing-4o-image-generation/
It’s a marketing post but with some solid discussions and interesting examples.
https://www.nationofchange.org/2024/09/04/political-collapse-lessons-from-fallen-empires/
“China’s Ming Dynasty, the South Asian Mughal Empire, the High Roman Empire, and Renaissance Venice … the loss of citizen confidence in the leadership can trigger an unexpected unwinding of the societal threads that underpin inclusive forms of cooperation and devotion to a governing system designed to realize common good”
This topic needs more research but the short paper reminds us great empires can collapse very quickly for no obvious reason. Civilization is not a very stable condition.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/28/rfk-jr-fda-vaccine-scientist-peter-marks/
The GOP won its war on science. They will be hated.
https://www.bannedinyourstate.com/p/the-defiance-of-coyotes
Lovely writing – with the subtext of life beneath Musk. We have bold coyotes in our city. They demand respect. Even mid-day doing the territory rounds.
Don’t be a snowflake. Be the coyote.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/us/signal-leak-vance-trump.html
Trump does not like being reminded that he is cognitively limited. He knows Vance looks down on him. The hate is strong in them.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/atlantic-releases-signal-thread
Arendt of course: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/26/the-atlantic-has-an-owner-committed-to-the-cause
Good comment that Bezos would have blocked WaPo publication.
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/03/27/controlling-launchservices-in-macos-sequoia/
macOS has too many weird dependencies.
“LaunchServices now tries to include all apps in accessible volumes and folders.”
I think this is pre-Mojave.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/03/25/trump-has-surrounded-himself-with-idiots
RFK. Hegseth. Gabbard. Musk.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/incompetent-or-evil-a-false-dichotomy
Musk sees the bigger picture. One where people are too small to see and mundane morality is a weakness.