I shot the tariff

by liberal japonicus

Trump: China's mining too many ores
Musk: What are you going to do?
Trump: Order more tariffs to make them mine less.
Musk: Mine fewer.
Trump: Thanks, but I'm talking about ores.

After that, I've got nothing. Have at it.

Comments

[hairshirthedonist]

It's part of a well-considered 50-year plan. You'll see, unless you've already died by then. In the meantime, your retirement funds might dwindle, so you'll have to work a number of years longer than you had planned, assuming you haven't been laid off for the same reason your retirement funds are dwindling. In that case, best of luck and thank you for your sacrifice.

[wj]

My wife, is pretty much apolitical**, spent yesterday afternoon with a bunch of her friends from pickleball. Making signs for the local protest this weekend.

Getting folks like us upset is one thing. Getting these folks not only upset, but upset enough to spend a Saturday afternoon waving signs at a protest? That's an accomplishment.

** Registered No Party Preference. And, as far as I can tell, decides how to vote for by simply grabbing my sample ballot. I think she actually asked me about some issue on the ballot maybe twice this century. Just not engaged.

[wonkie]

It's a bit nihilistic of me but I am sort of glad that the pussygrabber has fucked up so badly that it's impossible to rationalize or ignore. Maybe his support will finally go below 40%.

However, the other things he's doing are equally awful or worse. It is a statement about this nation that getting smacked in the wallet has had a galvanizing effect that wasn't there when innocent people got gulaged, universities were bullied, essential services were gutted by an unelected and ignorant outsider, and the Rethugs packed a Cabinet with a collection of kooks, cranks, weirdos, and idiots.
And, as usual, the Rethugs are cutting taxes for the rich and planning to go after Medicaid while lying and saying they aren't.
But tanking the economy harms the rich and that is just going too far, I guess.

[russell]

When you lose the pickleball crowd, it's all over but the shouting.

:)

[wj]

It is a statement about this nation that getting smacked in the wallet has had a galvanizing effect that wasn't there when innocent people got gulaged, universities were bullied, essential services were gutted by an unelected and ignorant outsider

I think it's true of people generally that things which happen to them personally, and to their family and friends, are much more real than things which happen far away. So it's a statement about humanity rather than about our nation in particular.

[hairshirthedonist]

So it's a statement about humanity rather than about our nation in particular.

We're particularly good at lacking empathy, though, even if we don't have a monopoly on it.

[Donald]

I think Americans lack empathy to some degree because we are a superpower ( though one in decline which has just gotten much steeper) and have the luxury of not needing to know what is going on elsewhere unless we have ground troops over someplace or some terrorist group flies planes into buildings. We are full of the American exceptionalism illusion too.

But if takes this tariff catastrophe to turn most Americans against the Republican Party for a generation, I won’t turn it down just because it wasn’t for nobler motives. I should have had a comfortable retirement myself— it isn’t looking so certain anymore. Nothing looks certain.

If Republicans represent conservatism, we don’t need it. They don’t believe in anything anyway. They were supposed to be the free trade party. The Democrats can take in all the sane people from center right to the Squad left and either elections are decided in primaries or the party splits into a left vs center right party.

A person can dream. But the Republican Party delenda est , if I remember the Latin correctly.

[wj]

If Republicans represent conservatism, we don’t need it.

They don't. Haven't in quite a while. At the top of the ticket? Possibly Bush 1. More likely Ford.

Congress is necessarily less clear cut. But the turn away from anything resembling conservatism got serious with Gingrich -- went from being a minority position to being in control to, now, being pretty much universal. Still a handful who haven't totally abandoned conservatism, but no more.

Not sure exactly what label best fits now. But conservatives they ain't.

[GftNC]

Marina Hyde says they used a ChatGPT type thing to make the tariff calculations. It's the first I've heard of it, but it rings horribly true....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/04/donald-trump-tariffs-ai-hallucination

[wj]

Not sure how any AI would generate tariffs for a couple of islands inhabited only by penguins.

Best explanation I've seen is they just assumed any trade deficit meant we were being cheated by that amount. No clue about the economics of trade, obviously. (I suppose I could have stopped after "No clue."). Which still doesn't explain the tariffs on those uninhabited islands....

[liberal japonicus]

An observation that might have been better than the two bad puns above.

I've been getting most of my info thru YouTube as I have a new set of open air headphones, and today, after listening to a few things, I note that the list on the right has at Ezra Klein interview with Jonathan Haidt entitled 'Raising a less anxious generation'. Good luck with that...

[russell]

Marina Hyde says they used a ChatGPT type thing to make the tariff calculations.

The calculation for each country is trade balance / total imports, divided by two. The divided by two thing is reportedly because Trump didn't want to be unduly punitive.

LOL

The official formula given on the US Trade Representative's website has a couple of other variables (represented by Greek letters to make them that much more high-faluting) but the variables are 4 and 0.25, which the mathematically astute will note equal 1 when multiplied together, and so contribute exactly nothing to the calculation other than making it look exotic.

Apparently that is the formula coughed up by ChatGPT if you ask it "how to calculate tariffs" but it's not clear if that's where Trump et al got it from. It does make me wonder what they've been feeding ChatGPT.

It really is painfully hard to express exactly how stupid this administration is.

[hairshirthedonist]

Is it just me, or is the trade-balance calculation in the numerator backwards, subtracting (imports from country i) from (exports to country i)? The delta would be negative if we imported more than we exported.

[russell]

Is it just me...

It's math-like. Math-y, even!

Perhaps oddly, even countries with whom we have a positive balance of trade had tariffs imposed, e.g. the UK. In those cases, Trump just imposed the one-size-fits-all 10%.

The man is out of his gourd.

[bobbyp]

For those of you who can, please read Ezra Klein's discussion with Paul Krugman in today's NY Times.

Trump tariffs, Brexit...idiotic self-inflicted wounds courtesy of conservative politicians, self-described or not.

[bobbyp]

hsh,
The Greek "E" (epsilon?) in the denomenator is defined as the "elasticity of imports with respect to import prices" and is defined as some number less than zero.

Hope that helps!

[GftNC]

For those of you who can

Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-paul-krugman.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U4.D3wX.KuVhrP6KMigc&smid=url-share

[hairshirthedonist]

Hope that helps!

It does! I missed that detail. Thx!

[russell]

OT but not completely:

Today was the April 5 "Hands Off" thing. My wife and I went to the one in Salem MA. It started out by City Hall, which is right on a main street, and the cops had to move us to a large parking lot in the middle of town because of the turnout. About 1,000+, which is not bad for a city of about 40K people. Especially on a crap cloudy rainy New England April day.

As an aside, kudos to the Salem PD, who handled everything gracefully and efficiently.

Boston filled the Common.

"Experts say" that it takes about 3.5% of a population engaging in non-violent action to make serious political change happen. Don't know what the total headcount is gonna be on today's effort, but we're getting there.

[wj]

The "Hands Off" rally in San Ramon, CA was notable for two things. First, turnout seems to have seriously exceeded the organizers' expectations. The main result of that was the sound system was totally inadequate to let the speakers be heard by the whole crowd. But a lot of people seemed content to ignore the speakers and just stand on the sidewalk by the adjacent thoroughfare and wave their signs.

Second, while there were a few of the visibly-mass-produced Hands Off signs, the vast majority of the signs were obviously hand made by the people carrying them. To my mind, that makes a much bigger impact.

The other thing that I noticed only in retrospect: no counter-protesters. None. A bit surprising to me.

[JanieM]

Boston filling the common -- an honorable tradition.

The linked picture was taken in 1969.

Encouraged to see all the reports from today....

[GftNC]

wj and russell: something may be starting to move...

A friend forwarded this to me - it does have a Share button, but since she sent it to me I can't use it, so cut and paste it is, and I'll split it in two so ObWi lets me post it:

Additional small reasons for modest optimism
Eleven from this week
ROBERT REICH

APR 4

Friends,

In many ways this was another horrific week. Like a terrible hurricane, the Trump dictatorship is sweeping more people into its maw while further destroying our public institutions and wrecking what’s left of our civil norms.

Yet this week also featured 11 reasons for modest optimism:

1. Wisconsin Supreme Court vote

Despite Elon Musk’s hysterical warnings, cheesehead preening, and more than $20 million spent by the Republican in the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court — much of it by Musk — it didn’t matter: Liberal judge Susan Crawford won by a remarkable 10 points, securing the court’s liberal majority. A state that narrowly backed Trump in 2024 swung sharply away. Every county in Wisconsin shifted to the left in this race compared to the 2024 presidential race.

Not only did Judge Crawford pile up huge margins in Milwaukee and Madison, but she kept those of her opponent, Brad Schimel, down in Milwaukee’s predominantly white, middle- and upper-middle-class suburbs, where the abortion issue doubtless moved some Republican women to cross over and vote for her.

Wisconsin voters recoiled at the odor of Musk. At one point, Crawford referred to Schimel as “Elon Schimel.” That said it all.

Elon is proving to be a huge political liability. Trump says Musk is leaving the regime in a few weeks but I have my doubts.

2. Other races

In other down-ballot races, Democrats saw success on Tuesday.

Democrats won the other statewide races in Wisconsin. For state superintendent of public instruction, incumbent Jill Underly, who was backed by unions and Democrats, defended her seat comfortably against a GOP-backed challenger who supported school vouchers. Wisconsin Democrats also dislodged an incumbent county executive in light-red Winnebago County, and Illinois Dems flipped the mayoralty in the city of Aurora.

In Florida, Republicans defended two congressional seats — but by muchtighter margins than in November. Democrats in both districts campaigned against the DOGE cuts to Social Security/Medicaid/VA. These two districts were so red that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did not even consider investing campaign funds.

If you apply the shifts in Florida across the House battlefield in 2026, Democrats would be on track to flip over 40 seats and easily retake the majority.

In another major upset, voters in Aurora, Illinois, ousted their Trump-aligned mayor, Richard Irvin, and elected city councillor and community labor activist John Laesch as their next mayor.

What should really concern Republicans is that this growing rejection of Trump took hold even before he lowered the boom on the economy with his inflation-blowing tariffs. “[I] think that these elections are going to be proxies, or almost like weather devices for figuring out what kind of storm we’re going to be up against next year,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned fellow Republicans.

3. Nationwide, an ever-stronger rejection of Trump

What happened in Wisconsin and Florida reflects something that’s happening nationwide. Trump is doing far more to mobilize his opponents than to rally his supporters. Here are this week’s poll numbers (again, all polls conducted before Trump’s wildly irresponsible tariffs).

Reuters/Ipsos done between 3/30 and 4/1: Trump has 43% approval, 53% disapproval — the lowest approval since his return to office

YouGov/Economist poll done between 3/30 and 4/1: Trump has 46% approval, 49% disapproval — lower approval than Biden’s at this point in his term

Marquette Law poll done between 3/17 and 3/27: Trump has 46% approval, 54% disapproval

Morning Consult poll done between 3/28 and 3/30: Trump has 47% approval, 50% disapproval

4. Town halls are terrible for Republicans

Indiana Republican Representative Victoria Spartz was booed and scoldedby constituents at two town halls this week, over Signalgate, deportations, and DOGE cuts.

Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert held a telephone town hall this week but still faced tough questions about Musk/DOGE, Medicaid, and SNAP cuts.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to hold town halls in GOP districts where Republican incumbents are unwilling to hold them. Republican Representative John James wouldn’t meet with voters in his district, so Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Representative Maxwell Frost went to James’s Michigan district last Saturday to hold a town hall meeting with James’s constituents instead.

5. Democrats are fired up (finally)

No wonder Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) have become heroes far beyond the party’s progressive wing and have drawn such enormous crowds for their anti-Trump, anti-oligarchy rallies. The next stop on their tour against oligarchy will be Los Angeles on April 12.

Tomorrow’s nationwide April 5 “Hands Off” day of action also promises to be a big one.

The conventional wisdom had been that Trump’s opponents are less mobilized than we were at a comparable point in his first term back in 2017. In fact, the opposite is true. A study released last month by the Crowd Counting Consortium found “more than twice as many street protests than took place during the same period eight years ago.” The researchers concluded “that resistance against Trump’s agenda in America is not only alive and well. It is savvy, diversifying and probably just getting started.”

Democratic Senator Cory Booker spoke against Trump on the Senate floor for 25 hours and five minutes this week without sitting or exiting the Senate chambers to eat or use a bathroom, thereby breaking by nearly an hour the previous record set 68 years ago. He streamed the speech live on TikTok, where it garnered more than 400 million “likes.” The truly remarkable aspect of his speech was that it was a speech — not a venom-filled rant, but a substantive and thoughtful address to the nation.

Kudos to Senator Booker for reminding us of the importance of speaking out for what we believe and demonstrating America at its best. Meanwhile, Trump and his regime are demonstrating America at its worst: cruel, inhumane, and greedy.

[GftNC]

Part 2:

6. Tesla continues to plummet

Meanwhile, Elon is the worst sales rep Tesla and its shareholders could ever imagine. We learned this week that Tesla’s global sales in the first quarter fell 13 percent from a year earlier, largely due to a worldwide consumer backlash against the role that Musk is playing in the Trump administration. After Musk endorsed far-right parties, Tesla sales plunged in Germany by 41.5 percentcompared to last year; they were down in France by 41 percent; and down in the UK 0.6 percent

Oh, and Democratic lawmakers in New York state introduced a bill on Wednesday aimed at Musk and the so-called Buffalo Billion project, in which the state spent $959 million to build and equip a plant that Musk’s company leases for $1 a year to operate a solar panel and auto component factory. The bill would determine whether Tesla was meeting job creation targets, making promised investments, paying enough rent, and honoring job training commitments. If not in compliance, the state could claw back state benefits from Tesla, impose penalties, and terminate contracts.

7. Paul Weiss and Skadden are paying a price for selling out to Trump

The disgraced elite law firms Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps — both of which capitulated to Trump to avoid executive orders that could have crippled their businesses — are already paying a price. The firms’ associates are saying both privately and openly that their leaders betrayed their firms’ principles with deals that undermine a commitment to provide free legal work to public interest groups and causes at odds with the White House. A few have quit their jobs. Many aspiring young lawyers are boycotting the two firms. Good!

8. Trump’s tariffs cause utter chaos

I’m including Trump’s bonkers tariffs as a reason for modest optimism even though many in the United States and around the world will be terribly harmed by them, but the tariffs will smooth the way for Trump to be booted out of office — in 2028 or sooner.

Those tariffs are likely to be the worst economic policy since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, which worsened the Great Depression. They will cost the typical American family at least $4,000 this year, fuel inflation, and very possibly wreck the economy.

Stock and bond markets have plunged in reaction. The Wall Street Journalestimates that $2.7 trillion of the value of American corporations has already disappeared as a result of the tariffs. Many big corporations are planning layoffs.

Other nations will surely raise their tariffs on American exports or even block certain American services in retaliation.

9. Trump has lost his Senate majority (at least on tariffs against Canada, which may be a harbinger of more Senate votes against him)

The Senate voted 51-48 Wednesday to undo President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada — delivering its first major rebuke to Trump since his return to the White House.

Four Republicans — Senators Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rand Paul (Kentucky) — defied Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune by voting with Democrats to invalidate a national emergency that Trump declared in February, allowing him to impose a 25 percent tariff on Canadian goods. “Unlike Mexico and China, Canada is not complicit in this crisis,” Collins said.

The resolution’s supporters have described it as a way to send a message to Trump about the broad discontent with his tariff strategy, even if the measure has no chance of becoming law. (Trump has vowed to veto the bill, even if it makes it through the Republican-controlled House.)

In addition, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley introduced legislation (with Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell) to claw back Congress’s tariff power. The bill would force levies to be approved by Congress and allow them to end the tariffs.

10. Trump’s abductions

My tenth reason for modest optimism is also a tragedy in the making, but it’s stirring up so much public antipathy toward Trump and his incompetent cronies that I’m listing it.

Earlier this week, Trump officials admitted they had made an “administrative error” in abducting a Maryland man whose wife and child are both American citizens and sending him to a notorious Salvadoran prison — despite a court order that he could remain in the United States because he might face torture in El Salvador. The prison where he is now being held, known as CECOT, has long had a reputation for its brutal conditions.

To make matters worse, the Trump regime says it has “no power” to get him out of that El Salvador prison.

This is horrific but it’s also a cause for modest optimism because Americans are beginning to see Trump’s tyranny for what it is. Forcible abductions off the streets and from their homes of people n the United States whom the Trump regime only accuses of being dangerous foreign nationals — without oversight by a neutral trial court — opens the way for the “disappearance” of anyone the regime dislikes. This is what dictators do. It is not something America does — at least not until Trump,

11. Trump’s attack on Social Security is beginning to harm beneficiaries

Let me end today’s list with another horror show that’s about to harm millions of Americans but will almost certainly hasten the end of Trump’s reign of terror (if not also the end of the Republican Party).

Social Security is now engulfed in the worst crisis of its history. That’s not because it’s running out of money or because of fraud or high administrative costs. This crisis is entirely the doing of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

More than 12 percent of the Social Security Administration’s staff have been pushed out, and Trump has announced plans to fire nearly half of the total Social Security workforce.

The result so far: Social Security field offices are being shut down. Hold times for customer service phone calls are over 2 to 3 hours. The Social Security website crashed four times in 10 days.

I once served as a trustee of the Social Security trust fund. I know how critical this program is to the 73 million Americans who rely on it. They will not abide this raid on a program to which they’ve contributed throughout their working lives.

***

By listing these reasons for modest optimism this week, I don’t mean to imply we are in good shape. To the contrary, the scourge of Trump is worsening.

My purpose in bringing you this list is so you know that despite Trump’s tyranny, the resistance to him is wide and deep — and it continues to build. That’s partly your doing, for which I send you my heartfelt thanks.

[Michael Cain]

Scott Bessent, Trump's Treasury Secretary, is reportedly looking for some sort of graceful way to bail. He advised against the massive tariffs. He basically begged the rest of the world not to retaliate. If I'd lost both sides that badly, I'd be looking for some way to not be the Sec of the Treasury when the economy collapses.

Of course, the same argument applies to Chief Justice Roberts, who lost another shadow docket case yesterday. I believe he's looking for a time to exit, rather than stay on and be the CJ when the Court tosses the Constitution entirely.

[wj]

I believe he's looking for a time to exit, rather than stay on and be the CJ when the Court tosses the Constitution entirely.

But his alternative is to be the CJ who gave Trump the opportunity to appoint another opponent of the rule of law, thus guaranteeing the Consitution becoming a dead letter. Hardly a legacy to cherish either.

[novakant]

Not sure how any AI would generate tariffs for a couple of islands inhabited only by penguins.

The truth is actually quite funny:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/04/revealed-how-trump-tariffs-slugged-norfolk-island-and-uninhabited-heard-and-mcdonald-islands

[Tony P.]

wj: Not sure how any AI would generate tariffs for a couple of islands inhabited only by penguins.

Aficionados of "AI" (hi, CharlesWT) are welcome to ask their favorite LLM my old question for 2nd graders:

If Suzie has 5 ideas, and she gives Johnny 3 of her ideas, how many ideas does Suzie have left?

The response may shed light on wj's question.

--TP

[CharlesWT]

DeepSeek "knows" there's a difference between physical objects and ideas. But it does the math anyway.

"Okay, let's see. So the problem says Suzie has 5 ideas, and she gives Johnny 3 of her ideas. The question is how many ideas she has left. Hmm, seems straightforward, but let me make sure I understand it correctly.

First, Suzie starts with 5 ideas. Giving away ideas... Now, ideas are a bit abstract. Unlike physical objects, when you give someone an idea, you don't necessarily lose it yourself, right? Like, if I tell you a story idea, I still know the story idea, and you do too. So maybe the number of ideas Suzie has doesn't decrease? But wait, the problem might be treating ideas like physical items for simplicity. Sometimes in math problems, they simplify things to make the arithmetic clear, even if it's not exactly how things work in real life.

Let me check the problem again. It says "she gives Johnny 3 of her ideas." The wording here is important. If it was "shares 3 ideas," then maybe she still has them. But "gives" could imply transferring ownership. But again, ideas aren't physical, so it's ambiguous. However, since this is a math problem, I think the intended approach is to subtract the number she gave away from the original number. So 5 minus 3 equals 2. Therefore, Suzie would have 2 ideas left.

But wait, maybe there's a trick here. Let me think differently. Maybe when she gives ideas to Johnny, they collaborate, and the ideas multiply or something. But the problem doesn't mention anything like that. It's a straightforward giving. So probably just subtraction.

Another angle: If Suzie has 5 ideas and gives 3 to Johnny, does she retain the original 5 or does she lose the ones she gave? In real life, sharing knowledge doesn't deplete the original, but in math problems, especially for younger kids, they often model it as taking away. Since the problem uses simple numbers and the verb "gives," it's likely expecting a subtraction. So 5 - 3 = 2.

Let me verify with similar problems. If you have 5 apples and give 3 away, you have 2 left. The structure is the same. So unless specified otherwise, the answer is 2.

But the question is about ideas, which are intangible. So perhaps the answer is different. But in the context of a math problem, unless specified that ideas are different, we should treat them the same as physical objects. So the answer is 2."

"Suzie starts with 5 ideas. If she gives Johnny 3 of them, subtract the ideas given away from her original amount:

5 ideas - 3 ideas = 2 ideas left.

Answer: Suzie has 2 ideas left."

[russell]

I'm sticking with machines should work, people should think.

[Hartmut]

Yeah, there is always a problem with giving other people ideas...[ominous dots]

[wj]

Suzie starts with 5 ideas. If she gives Johnny 3 of them, subtract the ideas given away from her original amount:

5 ideas - 3 ideas = 2 ideas left.

Answer: Suzie has 2 ideas left."

Totally the answer I would expect an AI to come up with.

[Michael Cain]

Totally the answer I would expect an AI to come up with.

Wonder how it deals with the IP concept that one idea can be licensed (sold) to many different people?

[CharlesWT]

How do you deal with the IP concept that one idea can be licensed (sold) to many different people?

"Okay, the user asked a follow-up question about handling intellectual property (IP) when an idea can be licensed to multiple people. Let me start by recalling the previous conversation. The first question was a simple subtraction problem: Suzie gives 3 ideas to Johnny, leaving her with 2. Now, the user is shifting to a real-world IP scenario, probably connecting the initial math problem to licensing ideas.

So, the user might be trying to understand how IP licensing works in practice, especially since the original problem involved transferring ideas. They might be confused about how ownership works when you license something versus selling it outright. The initial problem said Suzie "gives" ideas, which could imply transfer, but in reality, licensing usually doesn't transfer ownership.

I need to clarify the difference between selling and licensing. When you license an idea, you grant rights but retain ownership. That's crucial. The user might not know that licensing allows multiple sales. Also, they might be thinking about how Suzie can still have ideas left if she licensed them, unlike giving them away.

Another point is the non-rivalrous nature of ideas. Unlike physical goods, ideas can be used by many without depletion. The user might not be familiar with this concept, so explaining that would help.

Possible aspects to cover: ownership retention, licensing terms (exclusivity, scope, duration), royalties, legal agreements, and protection mechanisms like patents or NDAs. Also, mention that each license is a separate agreement, allowing multiple licenses.

The user might be an entrepreneur or creator looking to monetize their ideas without losing them. They might need practical steps on how to license effectively, including legal considerations. Emphasize the importance of contracts and legal protection to prevent misuse.

Make sure the answer bridges the gap between the simple math problem and the complex real-world IP management. Use the initial example to illustrate that licensing doesn’t reduce the number of ideas Suzie has, unlike giving them away. Highlight that proper licensing lets her retain and monetize her ideas multiple times."

"The question touches on intellectual property (IP) licensing, where ideas (or creations) can be licensed to multiple parties without the original owner losing ownership. Here’s how it works in practice:

Key Principles:
1. Non-Rivalrous Nature of Ideas:
Unlike physical goods, ideas (or IP like patents, copyrights, or trade secrets) can be shared with many people simultaneously. Licensing does not "use up" the idea—it’s replicated, not transferred.

2. Ownership vs. Rights:
• Suzie retains ownership of her ideas.
• She grants rights (e.g., use, production, distribution) to Johnny or others through a license agreement, often in exchange for royalties or fees.
• For example, a software company can license the same program to millions of users without losing ownership.

3. Licensing Terms:
• Exclusivity: If Suzie licenses an idea exclusively to one party, she cannot license it to others.
• Non-exclusive: She can license the same idea to multiple parties (e.g., a musician licensing a song to many films).
• Scope/Duration: The agreement defines how, where, and for how long the idea can be used.

4. Royalties:
Suzie might earn recurring payments (royalties) for each use or sale of her licensed idea, creating ongoing revenue.

---

Real-World Example:
• Patents: A pharmaceutical company licenses its drug formula to multiple manufacturers globally, earning royalties from each.
• Franchising: A business model (e.g., McDonald’s) is licensed to many franchisees.
• Software: Microsoft licenses Windows to millions of users without losing ownership.

---

Addressing the Original Math Problem:
If Suzie licenses (rather than "gives away") 3 ideas to Johnny:
• She still owns all 5 ideas (no subtraction occurs).
• She can license those same 3 ideas to others, depending on the agreement.

Answer: Licensing ≠ giving away. Suzie retains her 5 ideas but monetizes them through agreements. The math problem simplifies physical transfers, but IP operates differently."

[CharlesWT]

Tariffs are not the only barrier to trade.

Why is Heinz Ketchup Called "Tomato Seasoning" in Israel—and How Trump's Tariffs could end up being great for Israelis. (Summary)

[bobbyp]

The one central tenent of glibertarinaism:

If we monetize EVERYTHING in conjunction with extreme property rights, the social Pareto optimum shall take place.

Or, an idea that cannot be monetized is, by definition, a bad idea.

QED.

Always good for a laugh.

[bobbyp]

Will IP come under assault in the looming world trade war?

https://cepr.net/publications/free-trade-retaliation-against-trump/

We might just find out.

[Pro Bono]

That's an excellent point. No one but rent seekers can think IP in its present state is working well. Trump may end up doing some good after all if he provokes the rest of the world into radical reform.

[wj]

Trump may end up doing some good after all if he provokes the rest of the world into radical reform.

Accidents will happen, ecen in the best run organizations. Which this administration isn't.

[nous]

That's an excellent point. No one but rent seekers can think IP in its present state is working well. Trump may end up doing some good after all if he provokes the rest of the world into radical reform.

The IP framework is not working well, but there are going to be a lot of small makers and creatives hurt by such a move. Authors, musicians, and freelance coders are going to see their work stolen wholesale, and they will have no resources to defend against this. And they were already being robbed by the AI developers who ripped off their work to train their LLMs.

Publishing is in the worst shape it has been in living memory from the perspective of the mid-list authors, and music is less and less sustainable for the equivalent artists there - people with long careers and barely sustainable livelihoods.

I'm all for IP reform, but only if it broadly empowers the people who create the IP. Robbing the publishers isn't going to reform anything.

[wj]

Authors, musicians, and freelance coders are going to see their work stolen wholesale, and they will have no resources to defend against this. And they were already being robbed by the AI developers who ripped off their work to train their LLMs.

Seems like the most urgent IP reform is to address the whole AI/LLM sector. Put in some protection. Combined with swingeing penalties, to make sure the huge corporations can't just shrug it off as the cost of doing business. (Why does 20% ownership of the company per violation seem good? Of the parent company/companies, just to be clear.)

[wj]

Authors, musicians, and freelance coders are going to see their work stolen wholesale, and they will have no resources to defend against this. And they were already being robbed by the AI developers who ripped off their work to train their LLMs.

Seems like the most urgent IP reform is to address the whole AI/LLM sector. Put in some protection. Combined with swingeing penalties, to make sure the huge corporations can't just shrug it off as the cost of doing business. (Why does 20% ownership of the company per violation seem good? Of the parent company/companies, just to be clear.)

[Tony P.]

Thanks for that Deep Seek exercise, CharlesWT.

A sense of humor being an essential component of what I call "intelligence", it reassures me as human that "AI" hasn't learned to chuckle yet.

Back when my niblings were in grade school, I would try out the Suzie/Johnny question on them and their little friends. Most 2nd graders and the duller 3rd graders promptly gave the arithmetical answer. The brighter 3rd graders usually corrected them on ideas-are-not-apples lines. By 4th grade or so, most kids kids would either laugh or indignantly give the Marissa Tomei response: "It's a trick question!"

I wonder whether the script of My Cousin Vinny has been used in LLM training:)

As for "IP" in a capitalist world, I say the problem started with Gutenberg, but it took the likes of Gates and Jobs to make a real hash of it.

--TP

[russell]

The IP framework is not working well, but there are going to be a lot of small makers and creatives hurt by such a move.

Yes.

Everyone thinks about copyright and IP protection in general in terms of Disney keeping their cold dead grip on Mickey Mouse until the sun goes dark.

Copyright and similar are the way in which many if not most original content creators get paid. Between AI/LLM and (for musicians especially) streaming platforms, a lot of folks are finding it really difficult to make a living.

The russell school of political economy in a nutshell is: people should be paid for their work. And not just "paid", but paid enough to live on. If anyone is making money off of someone's work, the person who does the work should be one of them.

Fight me.

And last but not least, Spotify delendo est.

[bobbyp]

a lot of folks are finding it really difficult to make a living.

Well I'm sure you realize a lot of folks are finding that difficult, not just creators. I am also pretty sure we could craft a public policy to take into account their interests (IP for thee, but not the great grandkids, etc). That's politics. But extravagant IP beyond all reasonable reason must die. As Dean Baker points out (ceaselessly, I admit) IP is simply a tax, and if you think of it in those terms, it is a tax that is both unfair and exorbitant in many ways.

[bobbyp]

I'm all for IP reform, but only if it broadly empowers the people who create the IP.

Baker has put forward a policy to address this issue. You might check it out.

[russell]

Well I'm sure you realize a lot of folks are finding that difficult, not just creators.

Yes, I realize that. And the remedies for that vary, depending on how folks get paid for their work.

If you write or record music, the way you get paid is via licensing the use of that written or recorded music.

If you want to say that "life of the author plus 70 years" is too long, I will not disagree. If you want to say that getting paid a grand total of $3K for having your song streamed a million times is fair, I will disagree.

Believe it or not, it actually costs money to create a recording. Sometimes even more than $3K, he said sarcastically.

I don't think folks really have much of a clue about the level of effort that goes into doing creative work as a career. It's not a 9-5 40 hour a week job. People have gotten used to having virtually free access to basically the entire body of recorded music, and that has made it that much harder to make that work.

You can call it a tax if you like, but I call it "if you want to use my work - especially if you want to use my work to make money for yourself - you need to pay me for it".

If you like a song and want to listen to it, buy the f***ing recording. Right? Or at least listen to it via a channel that pays a reasonable rate to the artist.

I'm not really interested in derailing this thread into yet another endless argument about IP, so I'll leave it there.

[russell]

Actually, one more comment.

The rates paid by music streaming services vary quite widely.

If you like to listen to music and want your favorite recording artist to actually get paid, consider Tidal or Qobuz, rather than Spotify. The cost to you will not be that different, the upside for the artist can be significantly different.

Support the people who do the things you want in your life. Right?

[wj]

If you want to say that "life of the author plus 70 years" is too long, I will not disagree

I think I'd go with life of the creator plus the life of his/her heirs, if any, who are human beings.** If the creator is, or purports to be, a company or other not-human artifact, go with something like 70 years -- NOT renewable.

** Trying to cover the desire to provide for the kids if the creator gets hit by a truck while still young.

[CharlesWT]

OT: Dire creatures bid their time in an unknown location after emerging from Ohio and Idaho.

[Pro Bono]

Authors, musicians, and freelance coders are going to see their work stolen wholesale, and they will have no resources to defend against this. And they were already being robbed by the AI developers who ripped off their work to train their LLMs.

Publishing is in the worst shape it has been in living memory from the perspective of the mid-list authors, and music is less and less sustainable for the equivalent artists there - people with long careers and barely sustainable livelihoods.

I'm all in favour of creators being paid for their work. It seems to me that much of the text I've quoted is saying that the current IP setup is doing little to promote that.

I've worked as a freelance coder. Copyright protection was irrelevant to me.

I have a good friend who's a freelance artist, selling bespoke paintings. Copyright protection is irrelevant to her.

Most musicians make their money nowadays from live performances. (Spotify etc. weren't stopped by IP protections.)

Copyright has some relevance to journalism and creative writing, but less than people imagine.

I would retain IP protections which seem to be getting creators paid.

[liberal japonicus]

Somehow, if countries impacted by the tariffs are going to want to get back through IP, I don't think it is going to be Spock and Kirk fan fiction and your nephew's garage band tracks. Or even plundering the Beatles catalog. I would assume it would be things like this

https://www.burfordcapital.com/insights-news-events/insights-research/affirmative-recoveries-big-pharma/

Operating one step ahead of other industries, the pharmaceutical industry has a particularly notable track record of asserting affirmative litigation and winning big. In the pharmaceutical industry, patent enforcement through litigation is a necessary (and budgeted-for) part of business, though it’s also expensive and challenging. Still, companies can’t pick and choose between research and development on the one hand and protecting the resulting IP on the other—both are necessary to remain competitive.

I'm a mac fan boy, but it would serve Tim Cook right if his return on the 1 million he paid for Trump's inauguration would be Chinese factories turning out Wo-phones, wo-pads and wo-books. (linguistic note, 我 (wǒ) is the Chinese 1p)

[liberal japonicus]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/07/trump-tariffs-lawsuit

ha ha ha ha ha.

[GftNC]

Hoist petards and the biter bit don't even begin to describe it.

[wj]

Dire creatures bid their time in an unknown location after emerging from Ohio and Idaho.

I really wish that, when people are doing these sorts of projects, they would spare an instant's thought for mitochondrial DNA. Or mention that they tweaked that appropriately, too. Because otherwise the "recreation" is, to put it mildly, suspect.

[wj]

Hoist petards and the biter bit don't even begin to describe it.

But I'm still hoping for both Leo and Koch to get hoisted higher and harder. A lot of karmic debt there.

[russell]

Most musicians make their money nowadays from live performances.

I don't mean to be a jerk, but what's your basis for saying this?

[Michael Cain]

Please note, I am not interested in reading an LLM's opinion on the following.

I find it interesting that an LLM trained on today's internet content essentially equates "give away an idea" with "transfer all IP rights regarding the idea". Rather than, say, throwing it into the public domain, or licensing under the GPL or Creative Commons models.

Many years ago I wrote a piece of software that simulated internet impairments in a way that was transparent to application software. The giant telecom I worked for practiced "defensive patents", patenting ideas we invented not to restrict others except in the sense that they couldn't patent the idea themselves and keep us from using it. We distributed the source code for my test system under the GPL. As is typical, I claimed everything conceivable in the patent application. To my surprise, the Patent Office granted all the claims. My patent was insanely broad.

A couple of years after the patent issued Wired magazine published an article about a Microsoft laboratory where people could bring Windows applications and test their behavior under various internet impairments. The article mentioned that the MS test bed software was patented. I took the time to go look things up. Microsoft's patent mentioned mine, and spent a couple of pages trying to argue that they weren't infringing. I still claim they were wrong, and if my company had chosen to do so, they could have shut MS's lab down in a minute.

The real giveaway was that in my patent application I'd used a couple of catchy phrases. In the Wired article, they quoted the MS lab manager using both of those phrases.

[russell]

I don't mean to be a jerk...

And yet I succeed in being one. At least on (and hopefully limited to) the topic we were discussing. It makes me want to pick fights, which is inappropriate, and which you do not deserve.

Sorry about that!

[JanieM]

bobbyp: As Dean Baker points out (ceaselessly, I admit) IP is simply a tax, and if you think of it in those terms, it is a tax that is both unfair and exorbitant in many ways.

nous: I'm all for IP reform, but only if it broadly empowers the people who create the IP.

bobbyp: Baker has put forward a policy to address this issue. You might check it out.

bobby: After admittedly a minimum of googling, I didn't come up with anything that would educate me about Dean Baker framing of IP as a tax. Can you give us a couple of references?

[liberal japonicus]

Charles, II’m not sure how I phrased it, but the intent of my request about forgoing the use of AI in the comments meant that you shouldn’t post things like the two deepseek replies above. Thanks in advance

[Pro Bono]

Russell, it's fair for you to question my assertion. It was very generous of you to apologise.

I thought I was saying something uncontroversial, but I'm willing to learn otherwise.

One point is that in my youth, bands I followed would tour to promote their records. Nowadays they issue records to promote their tours. Concert prices reflect that.

[Pro Bono]

Russell, it's fair for you to question my assertion. It was very generous of you to apologise.

I thought I was saying something uncontroversial, but I'm willing to learn otherwise.

One point is that in my youth, bands I followed would tour to promote their records. Nowadays they issue records to promote their tours. Concert prices reflect that.

[bobbyp]

JanieM,

Baker generally frames IP in terms of redistribution of wealth upward....so, like a tax on the rest of us. A typical example:

https://cepr.net/publications/patents-and-the-abundance-agenda/

I regularly read his fulminations here:

https://cepr.net/series/dean-bakers-beat-the-press/

Now I for one appreciate the efforts of starving artists, don't get me wrong. The world would be much worse without them. We should have IP for their efforts, just not so much for the corporation that winds up with the rights when commercial success visits them.

Baker addresses this issue with a policy of tax credits:

https://cepr.net/publications/getting-beyond-copyright-there-are-better-ways-to-support-creative-work/

Who knows? It might work. The point is this. There is more than one way to skin a cat. When it comes to public policy, we need to widen our horizons.

[Michael Cain]

Or, an idea that cannot be monetized is, by definition, a bad idea.

Between when I retired and when I became a full-time caregiver for my wife, it was amazing how many little gadgets my friends and family suggested that I build. None of which were monetizable.

[hairshirthedonist]

If nothing else, we have the Musk-Navarro feud as entertainment. People out of touch with reality can disagree far more easily, or at least they have more options for disagreement, than people in touch with reality. The limitations of facts and truth don't apply for people who just believe things because they want to.

[russell]

Pro Bono, thank you for your graceful reply.

As is no doubt evident, this is a topic on which I have... opinions. Which make me prone to ranting.

The short-ish answer to how musicians make a living is "any way they can". Which usually involves wearing a lot of hats and making small-to-medium amounts of money from a variety of resources. It's a highly competitive and intensely entrepreneurial career path.

Among the ways that working musicians I know make money are: teaching, working as recording or live sound engineers, producing and promoting live shows (including their own), endorsements from musical equipment manufacturers (including doing clinics), generating online content, running drum circles, building or repairing musical instruments and gear, running rehearsal spaces for other musicians.

And, playing live shows and session work. Really prominent artists can make, literally, millions per show. Journeyman and mid-level artists often lose money touring, and rely on merch sales to make their nut. Touring sidemen - the musicians that the artist hires to play with them in live shows - generally get somewhere between a couple hundred to a thousand per show, plus a modest per diem. And if you are playing enough shows for that to amount to a living, you are living on the road.

The Indeed website reports that working musicians make in the neighborhood of $50K a year. And that includes in places like NY where it costs a lot to live.

It's a tough way to make a living. I get the arguments about how IP is abused, but as things stand now copyright is the way that people who write and record music get paid. And they should get paid, it takes a lot of time, effort, and up front money to create that stuff.

And that's enough from me, probably.

[GftNC]

I didn't know the Dems (senators and congresspeople) are holding "shadow hearings" with whistleblowers, like a woman from the DOJ who refused to go along with the move to enable Mel Gibson to get his gun rights back. The DOJ threatened that if she testified, they would send armed marshalls to her home to serve her with a letter threatening various bogus actions they would take against her if she continued her plans to testify to these shadow hearings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnwkrvQLZfc

This 22 minute clip includes her testimony.

[JanieM]

bobbyp: thanks for the links. I've skimmed them quickly and will read them more carefully later (I'm still on the road, so to speak).

Also thanks to russell for the thoughts on working musicians.

[GftNC]

Biting American Pie parody on last week's The Last Leg (comedy/politics show, where the three presenters famously have four legs between them):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7neONMnxhJE&list=RD7neONMnxhJE&start_radio=1

[GftNC]

This is Carole Cadwalladr, giving her second TED talk when she was almost destroyed, legally and financially, after giving her first one. This one is called "This is What a Digital Coup Looks Like". I think it's very important. YMMV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOoT8AbkNE