have you noticed that trump and putin are trying to outdo each other on unpredictability? it's reflective of the absurdity of post cold war hegemonic capitalism. in the cold war, everybody was trying to avoid bombing each other. nowadays, both sides compete over who is more deranged, and more likely to push the button first. it's a badge of honour.

you know the world you're living in is beyond insane when you're citing phil collins as a political analyst.

we revel so deeply in our rejection of logic that we celebrate breaking game theory as a tool of analysis. rational actor? what does that even mean?

to the extent that it is true that the russians gave up because reagan scared them into standing down by refusing to behave rationally, which i understand is substantive, the lesson we've all learned is that we get ahead by rejecting logic. success requires an embrace of irrationality. the crazy always win.

if this was the cold war, there would be an attempt to make sure the other side understood what you were going to do before you did it, because the cuban missile crisis was a real event and not a tv show and because one too many bombers got just a bit too close, and because some heroes that have been forgotten made courageous decisions to ignore their chain of command, and were right to do it.

today, trump wants to keep putin guessing, to try to catch him unprepared.

and putin wants to make sure trump doesn't know what to expect in response.

because this is hegemonic capitalism: the triumph of the illogic, madness gone wild.

the basic idea behind what carney just announced is "trump is right, let's follow his lead".

ugh.

see, tariffs are hard and it's easy to be stupid.

if you put tariffs on countries importing steel, they will put tariffs on our exports. exports will decline. meanwhile, if local steel was preferable, you wouldn't need tariffs in the first place. the result is more likely to be recessionary than protectionist. you end up with less exports and less local consumption.

oops.

picking a fight with somebody else to mitigate the issue with the americans is not wise. our issue is with the americans. keep the measures directed.

the reality is that steel is filthy. let the americans do steel if they want. let's put export taxes on them and build houses instead. if we just do keynesian stimulus, we don't need extra tariffs on other countries.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/trumps-tariffs/article/canada-to-adjust-counter-tariffs-against-us-on-july-21-carney/