Trump Neurosis Thread

[TzarChasm]

Oh crap I was trying to make a joke about a crazy investment strategy based on the 7 colors of the rainbow and chat-gpt actually hit it out of the park:

That's actually a pretty solid model for an investment portfolio. I'll grab a copy now, thanks.

[putnam6]

Fans of the Madagascar cartoon might appreciate this one.

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/9pnouh.jpg]

[Oldcarpy2]

:beer:

[Oldcarpy2]

Not that I was ever planning on being able to really retire, 401k or not cuz that's the world but.....
You made me curious...
I haven't checked mine since late January. And.....mine is exactly the same as 2 months ago. hm.
As in +/- a few hundred dollars.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1dr7vy3...08ea6#post

Might want to check again....

[AngryOldBrewer]

Think link is to a substack account, but a friend of mine periodically sends this historian's stuff to me. Interesting to read how the left views what is happening and of course taken with a grain (just one) of salt. Lot's of OMB

https://substack.com/@heathercoxrichardson/notes

Might not have done this correctly so let me know if it comes out incorrectly or I don't have the proper link




April 2, 2025 (Wednesday)


Just five months ago, on October 19, 2024, The Economist ran a special report on America’s economy. That economy was, the magazine said, “the envy of the world.” Today, stock market futures plummeted after President Donald J. Trump announced that he will impose a 10% tariff on all imports to the United States, with higher rates on about 60 countries he claims engage in unfair trade practices, including China, Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea, as well as the European Union.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost more than 1,000 points upon the news, falling by 2.5%; the S&P 500 dropped 3.6%.
Trump’s erratic approach to the economy had already rattled markets, which dropped significantly in the first quarter of this year, and consumer confidence, which recently hit a twelve-year low. Trump waited until the stock market had closed today before he announced the new tariffs. Then, in a speech in the White House Rose Garden, he said: “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. But it is not going to happen anymore.” Instead, he said, tariffs would create “the golden age of America.”
“Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much,” former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers posted. “The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now [close] to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.” “The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history,” posted former vice president Mike Pence.
Trump claims he is imposing “reciprocal tariffs” and says they are about half of what other countries levy on U.S. goods. In fact, the numbers he is using for his claim that other countries are imposing high tariffs on U.S. goods are bonkers. Economist Paul Krugman points out that the European Union places tariffs of less than 3% on average on U.S. goods, while Trump maintained its tariffs are 39%.
Krugman said he had no idea where that number had come from, but financial journalist James Surowiecki figured out that the White House “just took our trade deficit with [each] country and divided it by the country’s exports to us.” He called it “extraordinary nonsense.” Washington Post economic writer Catherine Rampell posted that she was reluctant to amplify Surowiecki’s theory that the tariff rates were based on such a “dumb calculation,” but then the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative confirmed it.
Certain observers in business had apparently persuaded themselves that Trump didn’t really intend to raise tariffs very much and that his many vows to do so were simply rhetoric, since economists agree that tariffs are a tax on consumers and will raise inflation and slow down growth. Today’s tariffs are higher than expected, and business leaders are alarmed.
JPMorgan tonight said that they “view the full implementation of these policies as a substantial macro economic shock not currently incorporated in our forecasts” and that “these policies, if sustained, would likely push the US and global economy into recession this year.”
Economist Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations agreed. He told David J. Lynch and Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: “In the short run, the effect is probably a recession. It’s going to raise the price of so many goods that can’t be made in the United States…. In the long run, it’s a vision of the U.S. that is very isolated from the world.”
But not from every other country. While Trump imposed tariffs on Australia’s remote Heard and McDonald Islands, which are uninhabited except by wildlife like seals and penguins, it did not put tariffs on Russia. A different financial shift lifted sanctions against senior Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, to permit him to travel to Washington, D.C., today to meet with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff for what Alex Marquardt, Jennifer Hansler, and Alayna Treene of CNN refer to as “talks on strengthening relations between the two countries as they seek to end the war in Ukraine.”
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted tonight that the tariffs make no economic sense because “[t]hey aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool.” Murphy suggests they are a way to make private industry dependent on the president the same way he has tried to make law firms and universities dependent on him. Industries and companies “will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief.”
Murphy warns that “[t]he tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship…[s]o that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.”
There is also Trump’s apparent fascination with President William McKinley, who held office from 1897 to 1901, at a time when high tariffs concentrated wealth in the hands of industrialists while workers and farmers, as well as their families, faced injury, hunger, and homelessness from dangerous working conditions, low wages and commodity prices, and seasonal factory closings.
Trump has frequently claimed those years were the nation’s wealthiest, and today he helped to explain his focus on that era when he referred to the 1913 Revenue Act, a law that has angered the right wing for decades. That act began the process of replacing the high tariffs of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with an income tax, thus shifting the burden of funding the treasury from ordinary Americans through tariffs to wealthier Americans through the income tax. At least some of Trump’s tariff plans seem tied to his enthusiasm for tax cuts on wealthy individuals and corporations.
But in trying to reestablish the financial patterns of the late nineteenth century—patterns that led to profound economic instability in the U.S., including economic crashes—Trump is undermining the system of global trade that has fostered international cooperation since World War II. CNN global economic analyst Rana Foroohar told CNN’s John Vause: “This is Trump saying…I am going to overturn globalization as we’ve known it.” She added: “I’m hoping it doesn’t push the U.S. and the world into recession.”
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo makes the important point that “Presidents have no inherent power over tariffs whatsoever.” The Constitution gives to Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs. But the International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows the president to impose tariffs if he declares a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which Trump did today, declaring a “national emergency to increase our competitive edge, protect our sovereignty, and strengthen our national and economic security.”
That same law allows Congress to end such a declaration of emergency, but so far, Republicans have declined to do so. Today the Senate rebuked Trump by passing a resolution to block his tariffs on Canadian products, with four Republicans—Susan Collins (ME), Mitch McConnell (KY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Rand Paul (KY)—joining Democrats to pass the resolution. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is unlikely to take the measure up.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

C'mon. Who cares about the poor? They will be raptured before the economic recession hits. And those who stay will inherit the earth. Which probably means most people on earth will become poor.

Anyway, people on Musk's platform do not share your anxiety. I read the comments and most of them can be summed up with one sentence:

"God bless the president of the United States of America!!!"

So let's rejoice. Glory glory hallelujah! 

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsI3pThlmXs]

The Democrats?

We could have had Joy!



Well, by "we" I mean, the other half of the electorate. The non Trump-choir singing one. And only we feel like the country skewed into the tangent universe where Biff Tannen got the sports almanac and now owns the Casino/Hotel in Hell Valley.

I need a terrible stainless steel car.

[MonkMode]

“Financial journalist James Surowiecki figured out that the White House “just took our trade deficit with [each] country and divided it by the country’s exports to us.” He called it “extraordinary nonsense.” Washington Post economic writer Catherine Rampell posted that she was reluctant to amplify Surowiecki’s theory that the tariff rates were based on such a “dumb calculation,” but then the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative confirmed it.”

That’s like if a business were to levy the highest taxes on their best vendors.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

I get the feeling the "enough is enough" line is approaching at some point.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congres...rcna199555

The Senate voted 51-48 in favor of a Democratic-led measure to revoke Trump’s Canadian tariffs. Four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine; Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joined all 47 Democrats in supporting it.

And what that means is Collins, Paul, McConnell, and Murkowski are horrible traitor RINOs that are intentionally screwing up Trump's plan to be mean to Canada for no reason at all.

Go moderates, and thank you for the congressional check of the executive at least once, because they don't even listen to the judicial anymore. Maybe this will be an unofficial blue Senate majority in the end?

How many has he attacked on Twitter since the vote? None? All 4?

That Venezuelan Deportee Judge is mulling holding the administration in contempt for violating his order.. And he is not just a level-headed judge doing his job to check the power of the executive branch, he's a payrolled deep state infiltrator out to undermine our glorious and exalted leader!

[Orionthehunter]

I told someone today Trump is making me watch a train wreck in slow motion as far as our economy goes.   A third term conversation just shows me he and team are delirious.

I predict US consumers overall will expect things to get worse and cut back their spending to necessities only.

I had been hoping all the tariff talk was just negotiations for trade deals not serious proposals.  Trump and team are seriously delusional though.

Tariffs are huge tax increases on low income and middle class Americans.  In response to huge tax increase, consumers will cut back spending as much as possible.  A massive recession will not spur a lot of new business in the US especially when most Americans believe democrats will be back in power in 2 to 4 years if our economy continues to tank. The American economy will tank in response to most consumers cutting back spending.  This is simple economics.  It is a train wreck in slow motion.  Just spelling it out in case anyone in the Trump team gets the message and gets through to the boss.

Please drop global Tariffs is a good idea theme.  Drop the bold plan to eliminate income taxes on less than 150k in income.  Focus instead on growing US GDP and a booming US economy.  That will do more to boost wages and improve things than any of this global tariff idea.

[Oldcarpy2]

I don't see how these tariffs are "Reciprocal".

They seem to not be based on any actual tariffs imposed on US goods but rather on individual countries balance of trade.

Looks like the markets are giving it the finger.

There seems to be the real prospect of a global recession.

Way to go, Donald.