#zerosum — Public Fediverse posts

Dear Mr. #Trump,

The #tariffs you levied on Canada and Mexico, igniting an illegal trade war on a transparently thin #pretext, are stupid, but many people, including the Prime Minister of Canada, have already explained this, so I won't belabour the point.

However, your insistence that the USA's trade deficit with #Canada constitutes an unfair imposition or an economic attack on the USA is, to put it bluntly, particularly #dumb. A brief analogy will suffice to demonstrate this, even to a decrepit, declining midwit such as yourself.

Where do you buy your groceries? I realize you probably don't know, having never done it yourself. But ask your staff to tell you where they buy your groceries for you. While you're at it, ask them how much they cost, given that you have no idea what food costs the average person.

Figure that amount out for a full year. Your Iphone contains a #calculator app.

For example, let's say it comes out to $12,000.

At the end of the year, you have purchased $12,000 worth of #groceries from <store>. How much "stuff" have they purchased from you?

The answer there is probably $0.

So you've sent them $12k, and received $12k of goods. They've sent you no money, and received no goods from you.

This is a "#trade #deficit". Has the grocery store thus "attacked" you economically? Of course not. You both benefited, although I realize you think #economics - everything, really - is a zero-sum game.

See how #stupid you are?

#ZeroSum