Garrison Davis

Brandon Lord, executive director of the Trade Programs Directorate of the Customs Agency.

Who are the people who are sort of

running all this is also part of why it's such a disaster because there's like 17 different agencies that are like working on this right so some of it's like the trade program directorate like at the customs agency but there's also just there's different parts of the customs and like customs and border patrol that's dealing with all of this stuff

quote, wrote that more than 26,000 importers who paid $120 billion in the Challenge Terrace were registered to receive electronic refunds so far.

The government has said that payments could take up to 45 days to review.

I would bet that it takes longer than that because, again, the portal hasn't been written, hasn't been, like, made yet.

But parts of it are still being built.

I'm sure those Doge guys are on it.

I'm sure they'll get this thing up and running in no time.

I'm sure they'll vibe code their way to a perfectly functioning portal.

It's going to be so good.

And again, I kind of emphasize how much catastrophe this is.

The government has said in court that their portal is set up for two-thirds of the money, right?

There's still another third that they're like, yeah, I don't know.

We're working on it.

Who knows when it's going to happen?

So there's just, again, like a third of the $166 billion that they don't even plan to refund.

Amazing.

Now, this is not even the messiest part of this, right?

There's a very good piece in the conversation from Peter R. Crabb, who's a professor of finance and economics at Northwestern Nazarene University, and also Alison Graham Larson, who's an assistant professor of criminal justice at the same university.