👋 ASB Partners Nuggets 4.4.25

This is a short weekly email that covers a few things I’ve found interesting during the week.

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Interesting Links/Reads

Many links are sourced from Marginal Revolution

1. Yours truly on the Trump tariffs at The Free Press (Tyler Cowan)

In any case, we will be moving into a future with higher prices, less product choice, and much weaker foreign alliances. The tanking of the stock market, and other possible asset price repercussions, may tip America into recession and increase joblessness.

This is perhaps the worst economic own goal I have seen in my lifetime. I cannot think of any credentialed economist colleague—Democrat, Republican, or independent—who would endorse it. And I haven’t even mentioned the risk that some foreign nations will retaliate against American exporters, damaging our economy all the more.

You might think there is something to be said for a reciprocal approach to tariffs. Usually it consists of cutting off your nose to spite your face, but if it can sometimes work it requires a president (and Congress) who is predictable and trustworthy.

That is not how foreign nations view the current administration.

If you are wondering about the trade treatment of Canada and Mexico, that remains cloaked in mystery. The threatened 25 percent rate on those two nations, from earlier in Trump’s second term, violates the NAFTA redo that was negotiated by Trump himself. Why trust in reciprocity here?

There is much more at the full link. And yes we are getting government by AI (kudos to Rohit!), but someone didn’t write the proper prompt…

2.‘It Had Teeth’: A 3-Year-Old Discovers Ancient Treasure in Israel While on a hike with her family, a child stumbled across a 3,800-year-old Egyptian amulet. It will go on display in an upcoming exhibition.

3. ‘How to Make Money’ Review: Imperial Investments Agriculture remained an ideal measure of wealth in the ancient world even after Rome achieved economic superiority.

“I’m not that proud of my philanthropy,” the investor Charlie Munger said in a 2020 interview. “I regard it as an absolute minimum duty for somebody who’s reasonably successful to be reasonably generous.” The Romans could hardly have agreed more; Mr. Grillo includes Suetonius’ commemoration of Julius Caesar’s lavish public entertainments and Martial’s verse on the unsurpassed marvel of the Colosseum, built for public use in the very spot where Nero had constructed a luxurious lake for his personal enjoyment. “Rome,” wrote Martial, “is being returned to herself, and under [the emperor Titus’] rule . . . what used to delight a single master now delights all people.”

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I hope you enjoyed it.

Adam