Tariffs are maya

Two philosophers walk into a customs office. One is importing chess boards, the other ex porting metaphors. The customs officer says, 'There's a 40% tariff on intellectual property.'

Philosopher 1: But what is property, if not a societal illusion?

Philosopher 2: And isn't value entirely subjective, like taste in jazz or spouses?


After a 3-hour debate, the customs officer breaks down sobbing and lets them both through - provided they never return. Later, their shipment causes an international incident when a metaphor about broken promises is taken literally.

Game the System

A country hired 12 economists, 8 lawyers, an ex-Democrat and a retired circus juggler to design a tariff system that was 'fair but incomprehensible'. They succeeded. Importers had to solve differential equations just to get a shipment of socks approved. One tariff required you to pay 10% of the goods' value, plus 250 iPhones, minus one existential crisis.

When challenged by a trade partner, the country's president simply said, 'Our tariffs follow the Fibonacci sequence.' No one dared ask again. The system collapsed only when the ex-juggler became minister of common sense and eliminated all tariffs except on Mar-a-Lago golf balls, which were deemed 'culturally destabilising'.