Enough is enough. I have reached saturation point with the uncountable words written recently on tariffs, most not worth the space they are printed on.
I am weary of Tyrannosaurus Trump and his flat-earth efforts to explain or justify a clearly stupid global tariff regime, and of the thousands of commentators and analysts speculating forlornly on the implications of the unexplainable and unknowable.
All we need to know is first, that the plan is nonsensical and likely unworkable; and second, that the uncertainty it generates will be bad, perhaps even catastrophic, for most ordinary people worldwide, including in the United States. The primary purpose is probably to swamp governments and media with so much chaff that leaders have no time left to manage their economies.
Confident that in due course he and his acolytes will fall catastrophically from grace, I have been trying to distract myself. For example, with the alarming fact that last winter over half of America’s bee colonies – an estimated 1.6 million – died, jeopardising crop pollination; or the debate over abolishing daylight-saving time; or whether Kirsty Coventry, the International Olympic Committee’s first female head, will have the courage to change the Olympics business model.
Or an old Visual Capitalist graphic from 2017, showing how 35 Chinese cities already had country-sized economies. Few people distant from China properly recognise the awesome size and diversity of China’s economy, and the more often we are reminded of this the better.
A better recognition of China’s size, scale and complexity would help pre-empt naive, or plain silly, predictions that a deeply troubled property market, an ageing population or comparatively low levels of household consumption are about to bring this very large economy to its knees.
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