Matthew Jenkins

Former marketeer. Cricket addict.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@BBCYork Fowl smell, surely?

[BBC York @BBCYork]

Go behind the scenes of the hit Channel 4 drama in Museum Gardens.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@yorkshireladtv @mattylufc_ Had you had a couple of sherbets by this time, Lad?

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

One Year On: The Greatest Economic Own Goal in Living Memory

A year ago, Donald Trump stood in the Rose Garden, surrounded by charts nobody understood, and declared war on mathematics. He called it Liberation Day. The Financial Times, along with every economist who has read more than a bus ticket, is marking the anniversary with a verdict that should be carved into marble: it failed. On every single front. Spectacularly. Completely. Embarrassingly.

Let us be precise about this.
Measured against Trump’s own three stated goals, making foreigners pay for doing business with America, narrowing the trade deficit, and punishing China, the tariffs have clearly failed.  Not partially failed. Not failed with asterisks. Failed the way a man fails when he drives a Reliant Robin onto a motorway and acts surprised when it rolls.

And everyone said so. Economists said so. Trading partners said so. His own party said so. The entire field of international trade theory, developed over roughly two centuries by people who actually read things, screamed it from the rooftops. But Donald Trump, a man whose relationship with economics appears to consist entirely of gut feeling and cable television and 6 casino bankruptcies knew better.

The average American household paid an extra $1,700 due to tariffs. Over 65 percent of Americans reported that everyday goods became significantly less affordable.  This is what happens when you run the world’s largest economy on instinct and vibes.
One year after the Rose Garden ceremony, factory jobs are down and inflation is up.  The precise opposite of what was promised. With extraordinary confidence.

Then the lawyers arrived.
The Supreme Court found that Trump had exceeded his authority, ruling that the declared emergency bore no rational connection to the trade measures imposed.  In other words, the legal foundation was nonsense. The government had collected $166 billion in tariffs from over 330,000 businesses on grounds the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. The refund process is now underway.  One hundred and sixty-six billion dollars. Collected illegally. From American businesses.

The financial markets, bless them, responded with the only appropriate tool available: mockery. The meme “Trump Always Chickens Out” refuses to go away, and the TACO index is now actively used by analysts to price in the president’s chronic habit of retreating. 
Every serious voice warned this would happen. Trade economists. Former Treasury secretaries. The IMF. The WTO. The EU. Canada. Japan. Basically anyone who had spent more than forty minutes studying how global trade actually works. The man who ignored all of them had previously run a casino into bankruptcy and considered that a learning experience.

He was not, it turns out, a fast learner.
One year. Zero of three goals achieved. One Supreme Court ruling. One $170 billion refund. One economy paying more for everything and making less of it.

Liberation Day. What a name for it.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@caughtoffside Agent Kepa delivers again

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@InsideLucysHead Shouldn’t you credit the author?

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@gcraven10 2. .. or shepherds. Kid you not.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@gcraven10 1. I once had a conversation with a Trading Standards officer about launching new cooking sauces including Cottage Pie and Shepherds Pie. She told me they would have to be called Cottage Pie flavoured and Shepherds Pie flavoured because the ingredients didn’t include cottages ..

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@HarlanGarrett @PawlowskiMario The same as Katyn? Name one.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@MrBeesBrewery @JustinH60270486 @stephenjones9 And Marcus Smith.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@Simontalksftbl Obviously no dead player will ever recreate this.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@CarolaNutrition @TheNorfolkLion Oh no! The Corn Flakes are cooked, rolled and toasted .. in a FACTORY? Witchcraft!

[Jay in Kyiv @JayinKyiv]

First, Italians brought us the Renaissance.

Now this.

Europe just keeps getting better and better.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@birdmetaX @ChelseaFC Liverpool?

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@ChelseaFC Err nerr! I hope it doesn’t snerr!

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@TaxJusticeUK Jonathon Ross being a famous arbiter of morality, of course

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@yorkshireladtv @LNER @Seatfrog @EllersFarm You need to get out less, Lad.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@ismurray @HCH_Hill @logyAussie @93vintagejones Absolutely? “ Vaughan ruled in November 1670 that a jury could not be punished simply on account of the verdict it returned, but that individual jurors could still be punished if it could be demonstrated that they had acted improperly.”

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@Fudpacker82 @NoContextCounty Including being dropped by England, and deliberately run out by Botham, for slow scoring. Ironically.

[Matthew Jenkins @Mattsliced]

@henrymoeranBBC @EllyOldroyd @bbc5live Has been