[FRIAM] Autopoetic Surrogacy

[Santafe]

You know what’s funny?  This is suddenly the first thing I have heard about the tariff thing that made me happy, in a humanitarian way.

What would companies have done if everyplace on earth had trade barriers, except some small rock where currently only penguins live, and are left in peace?  Thank god they are tariffed too.  It’s so blindingly obvious, but I haven’t heard a comedian yet pass up the chance to scoff, to pause and think only one move further.

Eric



> On May 1, 2025, at 6:22, steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 4/30/25 2:02 PM, glen wrote:
>> Yes. As I understand it, the justification for the tariffs across the board is to dissuade such re-routing. So direct tariffs on China are for strongman optics. But tariffs on every other country are an attempt to bring some manufacturing back to US soil. If that is the rhetoric, it's naive, but slightly more sophisticated than mere grievance.
> Yah... to stop those penguins on otherwise uninhabited islands from creating a new Amsterdam-like middle-man (penguin) utopia in the (ant)arctic.
>> 
>> On 4/30/25 12:33 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> A profitable business might be to help (small) businesses to find companies in other countries to be distributors of manufactured goods from China.
>>> The distributor could hold the contracts and take a percentage.   If it was moderate the Chinese manufacturers might just absorb the cost to keep the business.  The U.S. manufacturer would probably prefer to keep their suppliers in place to avoid having to test out a new, untested supplier in Vietnam or whatever.
>>> 
>>> It would make a lot of sense for the Chinese government to facilitate this to the extent possible.   That way Trump can carry on with his trade war and China can just nod.
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2025 11:41 AM
>>> To: friam at redfish.com
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Autopoetic Surrogacy
>>> 
>>> Speaking of ports and shelves, I'm getting conflicting reports:
>>> 
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.seattletimes.com%2fbusiness%2ftariff-tit-for-tat-has-seattle-waiting-for-the-ships-to-come-in%2f&c=E,1,ao4W9e8yj3ZNbTL_xC06bFJYApS2txbtcvkDqVpTzv2fnp529yQmhVT4s6utpTSOD1fi1-NmByOOBjuooJvZVUrUo6IjZoRPfE0bRcTCeao9AhlhmfOTcFeI&typo=1 
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.king5.com%2farticle%2fnews%2fverify%2fwhat-we-can-verify-about-port-of-seattle-ghost-town-rumors%2f281-4c678f85-0987-4929-a62d-8fc27ab397b3&c=E,1,xgLAFyEEAaWzg9ENII8jDNzJb4uKeoXu94-5Y64Ipl0PEwYOyFjX_8M3LDzeJNf1t7AkFHQkZJSRtyUXKEOuIneEzPByAB9HxdGvVmA0_Iz0sFbyWFUTGw,,&typo=1 
>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.fox13seattle.com%2fnews%2frumors-claim-seattle-ports-dead&c=E,1,xum0dPBJuljXnGTtcYF4XbTz-ptq0qp7ghBnvukJbJ_h26leHsP_wWuLdqnitbmssV60eDtdkv3ud4sr-9JVc8LN78gHHDRiBFRR-dKg3PwpwAMEizCBFVc,&typo=1
>>> 
>>> Some talk about a short-term increase in anticipation for a longer term decline. Etc. But my own anecdotal evidence is the people who dropped off our new fridge told me that as recent as last month, they contract-delivered appliances for places like Costco et al at the rate of ~ 8 deliveries per day. Now it's down to ~ 1 per day. We speculated that people are making fewer larger purchases out of fear. So that drop off is demand driven, not directly tariff-driven (or incompetent boob at the helm driven). But it's all related, I guess.
>>> 
>>> Excuse me, I need to check our stocks of beans and rice ...
>>> 
>>> On 4/30/25 9:52 AM, glen wrote:
>>>> big actions and crash various "games" (e.g. empty ports => empty shelves), we'd minimize both the effort of the extraordinary in defining new games and the critical points of the ordinary people.
>>> 
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