Tag: economy

Sunda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Rose early, read some stuff. I finished reading a novel, The River We Remember. Then it was to the ‘puter. Normal bidness was planned but I was thinking slow (no coffee yet, you see), and I had a Slate article up already. I delved into it.

Luke Winkie wrote the article, I Wanted One Day of Peace on the Internet. So I swapped my feeds for a dose of what it’s like to live in the certainty of MAGA land.

I go into MAGA land to see what they’re reporting every other day. Luke Winkie is stronger than moi. I get in there and become enraged about the PINO Trusk lies and fawning. Can’t take it at all. Luke Winkie did, though, and wrote about well about why I couldn’t stay in MAGA land.

And while existing inside of MAGA land may be a reprieve from thTrade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardeste horror of existing outside of it, this is not a sane place to be either. The constant reaffirmations of loyalty must grow tiresome, even for the most committed of Trump accessories. We’ve become desensitized to the ritual by now, but slobbering over an elected official—of any stripe—is, and always will be, unbecoming. With my patience for the groveling wearing thin, I yearned for my ancestral home of belligerent progressives. I do not consider myself a person at risk of being red-pilled, and no surprise, but the propaganda did not work on me.

Second came a NYTimes article, Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest. Ah, yes, I wanted to see that. FAFO, all that.

China has targeted corn farmers and carmakers. Canada has put tariffs on poultry plants and air-conditioning manufacturers, while Europe will hit American steel mills and slaughter houses.

Mr. Trump has argued that tariffs will help boost American jobs. But economists say that retaliatory tariffs can cancel out that effect.

Robert Maxim, a fellow at the Brookings Metro, a Washington think tank that has done similar analysis, said that other countries had particularly targeted Trump-supporting regions and places where “Trump would like to fashion himself as revitalizing the U.S.” That includes smaller manufacturing communities in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan, as well as southern states like Kentucky and Georgia, he said.

The message foreign countries are trying to send, he said, is, “You think you can bully us, well, we can hurt you too. And by the way, we know where it really matters.”

But, you know, will MAGA land ever learn about this? I’m doubtful. Go into MAGA land and see how rosy it often looks.

Besides, I doubt the veracity of any organization led by a known, documented liar. In example, the CPI report released the other day said that inflation cooled in February. But this is PINO Trusk’s Department of Labor. DOGE has been in there. I think if PINO Trusk or his minions see a report with information that will render PINO Trusk and his economy less that awesome, they’ll just change the numbers.

This all leads up to the depressing aspect of PINO Trusk and their approach. They polarize. Divide to conquer. Foment distrust of each other and of the press, and now, the Federal government. It unites them in MAGA land because it keeps looking like the future’s so bright, they gotta wear shades. But for those of us outside of MAGA land, the future is getting dark.

0

Saturda’s Theme Music

It’s a blah day outside our windows. Winter is singing its final stanzas. Bleak ropes of gray clouds are strung together. Mists cling to the snowy mountain tops. Rain has fallen off and on, and the temperature has crept from 34 F to 41 F as a sharp wind whistles and moans.

This is Saturda, March 15, 2025, in Ashlandia.

My wife has been busy doomscrolling. She mostly goes onto Reddit and hits different forums. People who worked for the Federal government have set up many of them to tell about what’s going on in their offices around the nation. She shares tales with me. She also passes them on to her friends; they suggest that she needs to do less doomscrolling because she’d acting so dark, depressed, and pessimistic. I agree with them. But, it has a hold on her. Despite her statements that she wants to do less doomscrolling, she keeps feeding on the darkness, and it feeds on her.

The newscape is fucking bleak out there. How cheerful are we expected to be as PINO Trusk and the GOTP guts the government, slashes services, burns the U.S. Constitution, and talks about using American troops to invade other places?

How much cheerfulness should we offer as the stock market drops and drops, wiping out years of gains?

How cheerful can we be as PINO Trusk tries moving the country backwards in regards to air and water protections, civil rights, especially minority rights, trade and defense agreements?

What level of cheerfulness should we convey as greater discussions of a financial recession become more frequent?

Cheerfulness is a hard-won currency in this era. Maybe it’s just me and my wife. Maybe we’re too invested in following the news and doomscrolling. Perhaps we’re in an information silo where we’re only fed bad news, and it’s really much better. Inflation is dropping, and despite the stock market declines, people are growing happier and more satisfied. Maybe the erosion of freedoms isn’t as great as we fear.

Out of all of this, The Neurons have employed a song called “Unwell” in the morning mental music stream. “Unwell” was released in 2003 by Matchbox 20. The group’s lead vocalist, Rob Thomas, wrote the song.

On the live DVD Show: A Night in the Life of Matchbox Twenty, lead singer Rob Thomas states that he wrote the song as a metaphor for humanity in general, a song for people who are “messed up and feel alone like that. We all feel a little messed up sometimes… you’re not alone.”

h/t Wikipedia.org

I think many of us ar feeling messed up and alone. We’re also feeling frustrated, disappointed, and depressed. The future does not look good as we try to see what is to come. As the song’s lyrics go, “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired.”

Coffee and I have reached another cooperative agreement. Hope your day is strong, filled with hope and optimism. Here we go. Cheers

0

Twosda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

I read an interesing piece about The Trumpcession by Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo.

It’s not even been two months since 47 took office, and already there is talk of the dreaded R word.

In a matter of weeks, the U.S. has gone from having the most robust economy in the G7—with low unemployment, tamed inflation, falling interest rates and steady growth in wages and GDP—to being on the brink of a big economic downturn.

Jay Kuo puts up several reasons what might cause a Trumpcession.

Trump’s own big mouth

Not just his words but his deeds

Terrorizing workers

Undoing Biden’s signature accomplishments

Yes, those four points are absolutely so Trumpian. PINO Trump often lies and makes rash claims. Things are never his fault when they go awry but he’s fast to jump in to get credit. He hates former President Joe Biden because President Biden thoroughly trashed Trump at the polls and was credited with a strong economy and saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump, on the other hand, was soundly and continuously thumped for doing a poor job of those things by all but those who had their lips firmly glued to his sagging, oversized ass.

But those things aren’t what really struck me. Instead, it was how he’s responded again and again when talking about the economy. He keeps saying ‘we’. He never specifies who ‘we’ is. Never says Americans. Never says the United States.

It’s just a royal ‘we’.

Examples:

“There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump said Sunday on the Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,” Trump said Sunday on the Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“All I know is this: We’re gonna take in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we’re gonna become so rich you’re not gonna know where to spend all that money, I’m telling you, you just watch! We’re gonna have jobs, we’re gonna have factories, it’s gonna be great.”

He used the same sort of marketing language when he touted Trump Steaks, Trump Air, Trump University, and other enterprises he pursued. But what is key is that use of ‘we’. Methinks he’s not referring to the nation but to himself and his billionaire friends, including Putin of Russia.

That’s who PINO Trump refers to; not you and me, or his MAGA supporters, or the United States in general.

Just him and his friends and backers. That’s the ‘we’ who are gonna take in hundreds of billions of tariffs and become so rich.

That’s why he’s so indifferent to inflation. Sure, he used it as a club to bludgeon voters into deciding President Biden wasn’t doing enough over inflation. But PINO Trump’s end game was to gain votes. Now that he won, h doensn’t need votes, and those people no longer matter.

Nor do their worries over inflation and the economy.

0

Frieda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

The Great Deflector blames ‘globalists’ for the market drops.

Later in the same press event, Trump again blamed globalists for the market downturn. “I think it’s globalists that see how rich our country’s going to be, and they don’t like it.“

What an absolute crock. Couldn’t be the old standard of people and institutions who invest in the stock market were protecting their profits and selling stocks, could it? Oh, no, he has to pull up some bullshit bogey man.

Then again, PINO Trusk isn’t a deep thinker. Not a sharp guy. Doesn’t understand the global network of finance, manufacturing, and supply chains at all. Nope. He prefers a stone-age ‘isolationist’ approach. Thinks that will ‘make America great again’.

Meanwhile, treating your friends like shit ends up with them getting pissed at you and treating you like shit.

Ontario cancels Starlink deal over US tariffs — Italy may follow due to US pullback from Europe

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that he would cancel the $100 million deal the Canadian province signed with Starlink in response to Trump’s 25% tariff on Canadian goods. He’s also imposing a 25% tax on electricity exports, with New York, Michigan, and Minnesota being the most affected. CBC also reports that U.S.-based companies are banned from procurement contracts with the province.

X Threatens Our Democracy. Canada Should Ban It

Last year, as the U.S. government debated and then followed through on banning TikTok, Republican lawmakers advanced numerous arguments against allowing a hostile foreign power to control a significant medium of public discourse.

They said a social media application owned by someone who is close to an autocratic leader might be used as propaganda.

They said the amount of data harvested by the app from users’ phones could pose enormous security risks, providing information to the security services of a hostile power.

Of course, I might be in the minority in my concerns about PINO Trusk.

What Big-Business Leaders, Including Democrats, Say Privately About Trump

One Wall Street executive told me that Mr. Trump remains better than any of the alternatives. Another — citing Elon Musk’s government shake-up — said he likes what he sees so much, he now regrets voting for Ms. Harris.

It wasn’t just that this group resented Mr. Biden’s intrusive regulatory policies. They didn’t like diversity, equity and inclusion policies either — or anything they derisively described to me as “woke stuff.” Now executives and bankers alike (my circles tilt a bit toward Wall Street) are celebrating early signs of a reversal.

I’m not really astonished by claims that business leaders ‘favor’ PINO Trusk’s trash and burn approach. Stories are rising across the political spectrum about people who first cheer the Trusk Regime’s behavior. Then they’re personally affected, and the song they’re singing goes from praises to complaints. So, as PINO Trusk burns supply chains, declares tariffs (and reverses them), and alienates markets and customers outside of the US, we’ll see how they’re feeling in a few months. Sure, they’re wealthier; their wealth cradles their asses as we go through chaos and inflation.

Or, as Paul Krugman stated it, One thing that really struck me from Rattner’s piece — something I’ve heard from other sources — is that big businessmen think Elon Musk is doing a good job. I guess this is one of those cases where power and privilege make you blind to things that are obvious to everyone else.

After all this fucking around, I’m waiting to find out.

0

Frieda’s Theme Music

Howdy men and women, boys and girls, and all others regardless of your name, gender, or orientation. Welcome to another installment of Frieda.

Today is March 7, 2025. Blue sky and sunshine are stamping Ashlandia’s scene. Although it’s 38 F now, warming sun will carry us into the upper 50s. I can dig it.

So the Jobs Report came out, and I think I smell a con.

The US economy added 151,000 jobs in February in first full jobs report under Trump’s second term It’s like, what? How? Given all that I’d read about job losses throughout the month of Feburary, suddenly it’s good news? Call me old-fashioned but if I step in a pile of shit and it smells like shit, I call it shit. Additionally, given how the Trusk Regime has infiltrated every Federal computer system, and PINO Trusk’s propensity of lying, cheating, and being generally untrustworthy, I think there’s every reason to believe that we’re being gaslighted. That economists believed 160000 new jobs would be added blew my mind.

This is an interesting piece of the article:

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has made monumental policy shifts — including large-scale federal layoffs, funding cutbacks, a back-and-forth on tariffs and mass deportations — that have spilled into the broader economy, shaking business and consumer confidence, and resulting in several data points flashing warning signals.

However, the Department of Government Efficiency-driven employment cuts weren’t expected to make a big splash in February’s jobs report. That’s partly because of timing of the two surveys that feed in to the monthly employment snapshot and also due to the structure of employment separation agreements.

Still, Friday’s report gave a hint of what could come: The federal government posted a loss of 10,000 jobs for the month, with 3,500 of those losses coming from the US Postal Service.

So, they’re saying this is all timing? I remain incredulous.

This being the anniversary of one of America’s version of Bloody Sunday, reading about it triggered The Neurons to fold U2’s song, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, into the morning mental music stream. It’s the 60th Anniversary of the violence in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

The U2 song is about another government killing citizens. “One of U2’s most overtly political songs, its lyrics describe the horror felt by an observer of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, mainly focusing on the 1972 Bloody Sunday incident in Derry where British troops shot and killed unarmed civil rights protesters.” h/t to Wikipedia.org

Little changes, it sometimes feels. Governments kill their protesting citizens. Reminds me of PINO Trusk’s first term. Remember when he wanted to have the military shoot protestors?

Coffee has rescued me again. Hope you have a solid day. Cheers

0

Looky Here

The reciprocal wave is rising. This is the reaction to the Great Shitstorm of 2025 and PINO Trusk’s Great Undoing of peace and prosperity. Sure, we didn’t have peace and prosperity everyday for everyone, but now it’s gettin’ ugly.

Atlanta Fed predicts negative 1.5 percent GDP growth in first quarter

Oh, boy, the Atlanta Fed has started an ugly trend of downgrading GDP growth.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve is projecting a contraction of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.5 percent in the first quarter, flashing a warning sign for the U.S. economy.

The Atlanta Fed last week was predicting 2.3 percent positive growth for the first quarter. A month ago, it was registering 3.9 percent growth.

PINO Trusk has only been in office one month and the economy is caving in. It’s almost like he’s deliberately destroying it.

It’s not just the Atlanta Fed feeling it.

Inflation as measured in the Federal Reserve’s preferred personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index came in at 2.5 percent annual growth on Friday, dipping by just a tenth of a percentage point after rising throughout the fall.

Personal expenditures decreased $30.7 billion, or 0.2 percent, in that report.

Consumer sentiment also fell off a cliff in January as measured by the University of Michigan’s monthly survey, dropping nearly 10 percent from January.

Perhaps of more concern for economists, consumer expectations for year-ahead inflation popped to their highest levels since November 2023, rising to 4.3 percent for next January from 3.3 percent in December.

A majority of CEOs polled last year by accounting firm PwC saw a recession coming within six months of October 2024.

“61 percent of respondents agree that the US economy will experience a recession in the next six months, up from 49 percent in our June 2024 survey,” PwC analysts found in last year’s survey.

61% of CEOs polled agree that a recession is coming? Why, that’s terrible economic news, innit? Must be, for folks who were whinging ’bout the price of eggs in November of 2024.

Egg prices keep going up. Here’s the average cost for a dozen across the U.S.

Avg. price of eggs has hit a new high

The average price of a dozen eggs in a US city hit $4.95 in January 2025; jumping by 19.5% in just one month, from $4.15 in December. The price of eggs is higher than ever before, with the previous peak at $4.82 in January 2023, and has nearly doubled since the same time last year.

That’s just eggs, right? We can live without eggs. Other prices aren’t increasing, are they? I’m just fearmongering, right?

Walmart shares tank on dismal forecast as retail giant warns of slowing sales

Walmart shares, which had risen about 72% in 2024 and hit a record high of $105 last week, were down 6%. Shares of rival retailer Target were down 1.6%, with Amazon 0.9% lower.

The company forecast adjusted earnings per share for the fiscal year ending January 2026 in the range of $2.50 to $2.60, below analysts’ expectations of $2.76, according to data compiled by LSEG.

To be sure, these are serious matters. They’re going to be made worse by PINO Trusk’s DOGE-led cudown of government services. I don’t want life to be miserable in the U.S. or the world, but this is the path which PINO Trusk and the GOTP are blazing.

We saw this coming.

We warned the rest of you.

Will PINO Trusk take action to address it? Well, right now, his focus is on making English the official language and lying to and insulting President Zelnsky.

President Trump to sign executive order making English the official language of US.

I wonder if Trump will be required to learn how to speak proper English if it’s now going to be the official language?

Somehow, I doubt it. He really seems incapable of learning. Then again, he is 78.

That’s pretty old for a job like that, innit?

6

Thurzda’s Theme Music

Pop, pow, sunshine has laid out winter. Sprinter holds Ashlandia in its palm and leans hard toward spring. Blooms and blossoms and things are cropping up on trees as life feasts on the strong sunshine. Current temperature is 58 F and the weather ‘they’ say we’ll punch in over 68 F by the day’s completion. Cool beans.

Papi the ginger blade, aka Meep and Butter Butt, loves the sunshine but seems a little perplexed by its presence. Circumstances have promoted him to the only floof in the house, meaning he is also number one floof. He’s still adjusting to his duties but has taken to sleeping in every chair and surface he can find. It’s like he’s stating, “This is mine, and this is mine, and that’s mine, too.”

My wife and I were chatting this morning. She was indulging in her ritual doomscrolling and worrying that she’s in a news bubble. share the concern. Trying to ensure I’m not, I chased down online newspapers in Des Moines, Bismark, Santa Fe, and Tempe to peruse their samples. They mostly focused on local news stories. Only one mentioned PINO Trusk and DOGE. Most said little about politics in general. Interesting. They do seem like the sort of newspaper my wife is constantly bucking for in Ashlandia, a local site focused on local issues, just telling us what’s happening in the community, like why the firetrucks raced down the road with sirens screaming. We rarely get that sort of info these days, unless someone in the known takes to social media such as Reddit, Facebook, or NextDoor to tell what happened.

I have a 1981 R.E.M song, “Sitting Still”, rocking the morning mental music stream. I think The Neurons directed its playing because of the sense that we’re sitting still, waiting for the fall out from the Great Shitsorm of 2025 and the Great Undoing. I’m personally searching for validation of how I was taught the world works from A-Z, including the economy and features like supply and demand, inflation, and tariffs, and the Federal government and its systems of checks and balances. News about angry constituents at GOTP townhall meetings keep my interest piqued: many people are pissed off about what they’ve seen happening — or so it’s reported in my bubble. The GOTP response is to not hold meetings to hear what the people are saying. I’m sort of amused and intrigued whether this tactic can and will hold, especially if cuts to Medicaid are initiated. So I’m sitting still, waiting for results.

Fer instance, eggs. The price of eggs was a big deal in the 2024 elections. Now, The price of eggs is expected to skyrocket by more than 40% this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Meanwhile, the PINO Trusk cuts have reached home with several friends in Ashlandia. They were planning river trips. To use the rivers, passes are required. To limit the number of passes, a lottery system is used. The Federal government runs the lottery. With the PINO Trusk cuts, there is now no one to run the lottery.

Well, coffee has signed a treaty with me to provide energy. I’m going with it while coffee still exists and is affordable. Hope your day is strong in many good ways. Cheers

0

Wenzda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Such a firehose of news, I have two and half tons to think about.

First up, a child died of the measles in Texas, and the outbreak is growing. It’d be cynical to exclaim thoughts and prayers. That poor child. Yes, death is part of life, but when death, pain, and sickness can be mitigated but aren’t for religious or political reasons, I feel it. Pumps the cynicism in me up to the surface. News like this is painfully wearying.

Next comes some reflections on the U.S. and NATO. Legally, the U.S. can’t unilaterally withdraw without Congress’s approval. Of course, legally is a quaint notion in PINO Trusk’s worldview. PINO Trusk contiues thumping all over laws and the Constitution. Meanwhile, he can and is undermining the alliance’s intentions and cohesiveness with his bromance with Russia. If PINO Trusk did order troop withdrawals out of NATO bases, where would they be parked? We have military installations around the world, but it’d be a huge logistical challenge, and the ripples from such a decision…oh, the ripples.

The Idaho Capital Sun had a really engrossing article about a local meeting. North Idaho woman forcibly removed from Kootenai County Republican town hall When she exercised her free speech, men without badges who didn’t present identification forcibly removed her.

COEUR d’ALENE — A legislative town hall organized by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee devolved into chaos Saturday when unidentified, plainclothes security personnel dragged a Post Falls woman from the Coeur d’Alene High School auditorium for heckling legislators.

Though the company that provided security for the event has been identified, town hall organizers and Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris have claimed no knowledge of the security personnel or who hired them.

The tale is a whole ‘he said, he said,’ circle thingy with many attempting to deflect and pretend that others were in charge, but there seemed to be a lot of secrecy around the planning and execution. To me, such violent — and secretive — responses by ‘unidentified security’ is an outgrowth of the PINO Trusk thug mentality: bullying others without explanation to get their way. Sure smacks of Gestapo tactics. Really, read the story.

In “Letters from America”, Heather Cox Richardson posted clear, sharp insights and details about the budget resolution action going on in Congress. She begins with a Pete Buttigieg post: “A defining policy battle is about to come to a head in this country. The Republican budget will force everyone—especially Congress and the White House—to make plain whether they are prepared to harm the rest of us in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest.”

Ms. Richardson then presents the details. The GOTP wants to cut the deficit. To do so means cutting popular, useful programs while trying to push forward tax cuts for the rich. The GOTP’s entire reasoning process is maligned with flimsy logic and pathetic reasoning. History shows what they’re trying to do will absolutely not work. No matter, they’re too fucking bullheaded about it because they’re bending the knee to PINO Trusk.

I have mixed feelings about it. At this point, if the GOTP gets their way, slashing programs while giving the wealthy tax breaks, they’ll end up with higher deficits and a crumbling economy. Maybe then the MAGAts and others will awaken and demand a halt to the Great Undoing. If they don’t, the Great Shitstorm of 2025 will continue until serious reciprocal waves arrive. See, I’m, like, “We warned you, warned you, and warned you. You insisted that you wanted to fuck around and find out. So here it comes.” I kind of want to let it come, but that strikes me as being personally petty. Yet, based on the evidence so far, I don’t think they’ll learn until consequences jar their lives. I know, it’s a sad situation when it’s come to this.

“Requiem For The West” out of The Dish by Andrew Sullivan is the third piece which hooked my attention today. Mr. Sullivan writes, “We only saw Donald Trump’s foreign policy darkly in his first term — constrained, as he was, by a handful of white-knuckled Republicans in the executive branch. Now we see it face to face. It’s a vision where international law disappears, great powers divide up the planet into spheres of influence, and the strong always control the weak. It’s Trump’s vision of domestic politics as well. And of life.

“Control, plunder, gloat. This is the Trump way.”

That is the Trump way, along with using the gullible and low-informed. Trump has a history of breaking his word, laws, and contracts. He’s not a good businessman but he’s a really terrific liar and con man. In PINO Trusk’s world, “Zelensky is a monster but Putin is our friend. As for concessions from Russia for its unprovoked violation of an internationally recognized border? None that I can see, apart from stopping the war. (If you want to read Vance’s underwhelming defense of what’s going on, check out his reply to Niall here.)“

There’s the nub, too. PINO Trusk is so fucking adept at fooling people. Just give him a little material and he twists and hammers it until it seems like an absolute truth. He did that with President Biden’s age and inflation during the 20204 campaign. And yeah, President Biden didn’t put up much resistance. He’s done the same with ‘cutting fraud and waste’ through Doge now. Of course as so many have pointed out before, it’s not really about the inflation, President Biden’s age, or many of the other things which PINO Trusk said during his campaign: it’s about being racist and sexist. It’s about power and money.

Many of us see that.

Too many don’t.

2

Sunda’s Wanderin’ Political Thoughts

As observers watch the Trusk Regime’s Great Shitstorm of 2025 and the Great Undoing, we await the Reciprocal Wave. History, economics, science, have all demonstrated again and again that for every action, there are reactions.

This is an era of networks. The age of the old factory plants have faded. What we have now are multiple assembly locations. Subassemplys are built and then shipped into other countries, where they’re added to other subassemblies. Those subassemblies are folded into a final component which is then shipped to an assembly plant for final inclusion into finished goods, such as a car. This is true not just in the automobile and aircraft industries, but in many electronics industries, medical device manufacturing, and pharmacueticals. Wasn’t governments who did this, either; this was the capitalists, although they worked with governments to make it so, often encouraged by tax breaks and subsidies.

Likewise, the farm-to-table model is a simplistic concept for much of the food that reaches our tables. While we do have local economies with organic farms and farm-to-table can happen, nature still commands where some things grow.

The Trusk Regime has issued orders. Broken treaties. Damaged alliances. Withdrawn from marketing and trade agreements. Bullied allies and threatened and launched tariffs.

Tariffs will drive up prices. History has demonstrated it. Higher prices bring inflation. Inflation causes less buying. People just don’t have enough money to buy more.

Less buying equals less retail volume. Lower volume means less income for businesses. Businesses compensate with increased prices to sustain operating and profit margins.

But less sales volume is less business. Less tax revenues at all levels.

Less sales translates to less need for employees. Job layoffs and terminations follow.

To ice the cake, the Trusk Regime has cut Small Business Administration funds. Too much DEI for them. Without those loans and grants, small businesses will close. Unemployment will climb. Fewer businesses means increased scarcity and less competition. Prices rise out of that equation.

That is just the tip of that egregious economic situation. Think of what that does to consumer confidence? Imagine the impact on the stock and commodities markets, and the strength of the dollar.

But you don’t need to imagine that. History is full of these things happening. They have been studied. The cause and effect is well understood. With less tax revenues and less Federal funding coming down, roads and infrastructure fall into disrepair. So history says. Hello, if you were paying attention, you know that was one of the things Trump 45 promised to do and failed to do. And, if you’re paying attention to your history, you know that President Joe Biden delivered on that promise with a bi-partisan infrastructure repair act.

The things you can learn from history.

If you’re willing.

Beyond food scarcity, high prices, and small businesses shuttering, visualize what that does to small towns and cities. Imagine what happens to farmers and their businesses with their markets closed to them in China and elsewhere.

There will be backlash and more reciprocal impacts. Unemployment will rise. Homelessness will increase. Begging on street corners will climb.

The Trusk Regime has already made that situation worse by shuttering the USAID. Through it, charities helped with lunch programs. Religious charities depended on money from the USAID to help communities cope with homelessness, unemployment, and scarce resources.

But Trusk cut that. That now traditional source of help will not be there. Forced into starvation and desperation, violent crimes will rise. That’s a fact right out of history. So will an attitude. What do I care if the world burns down? I have no future in it. Because they can’t afford college. Even if they can get more education, to what end would they put their degrees with businesses terminating employees. They will begin to work as part of an under-the-table gig economy. Take low paying jobs to get a meal.

Imagine the impact of increasing homelessness and growing unemployment will have on new car sales and new home sales. But you don’t have to: history has shown us the impact.

The Trusk Regime has already made that situation worse by terminating hundreds of thousands of Federal employees. You don’t think that’s not going to affect the unemployment numbers, consumer confidence, and the economy? People without jobs don’t spend much money. The Trusk Regime likes to offer a scenario where these hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed individuals go out and get a new job.

Where?

Especially since the Trusk Regime also cut government contracts. Schools, businesses, and communities were depending on those contracts. Some of them were still rebuilding from natural disasters. The money had been allocated by Congress. The Imperial Presidency said, no. So those projects have stopped.

They’re not hiring anyone.

That’s what Project 2025 and the Trusk Regime wholly ignore. We experienced all of this things and built networks of state, local, and Federal government with rules, regulations, and experts to deal with these problems. The Trusk Regime decided it was fraud and waste and took a chain saw to it.

Now we wait. The Great Reciprocal Wave is coming. Its form is uncertain. Could be open warfare. Massive rioting. A military coup. Other factors of the Great Undoing will come into play. Like health crises. Say avian flu. Flu, RSV, and COVID-19. New diseases. So it could be another pandemic.

This is all just a tiny piece of it. Natural disasters will begin. Tornados will tear through towns. Wildfires will start burning. Flooding. Places will be evacuated. Productivity will fail more. Scarcity will increase. Tax revenues will plummet. The economy will sag. The fires will burn on with no to little help from the Trusk Regime. They don’t think those federal agencies were useful.

Hurricane season will begin. Storms will wreck whole areas. Scarcity will increase. So will demand. Inflation will rise. Tax revenues will plummet. Homelessness will increase.

What do you think that will do to the insurance companies? Not sure? Ask the good people of Puerto Rico, Oregon, California, Florida, Texas, and other states affected by natural disasters in recent years. They’ll give you a history lesson.

While you’re talking to them, ask, too, what it did to their health and their healthcare systems. Ask them what it did to their local economy and local inflation. Ask them what it did to their state of mind.

The Trusk Regime thinks that cutting federal agencies like FEMA is a good move. They think local citizens ‘on the ground’ in those locations will be able to ‘make better decisions’.

Yes, because the people of Asheville, NC, for example, have such a deep familiarity with recovering from disasters. *head shake*

Making decisions about how to help communities is only a small element of what FEMA does. They keep stockpiles of emergency food and water supplies on hand. They keep emergency housing on hand in the form of trailers that can be moved in to solve the housing problems for a while.

Those stockpiles will still exist. But with FEMA cut or its personnel cut, who will manage those inventories? Who will ship those supplies?

And we know that this will happen.

Because history taught us. You can learn a lot from history, if you’re willing. Just cast your mind back to 2005, Hurricane Katrina, and New Orleans. Twenty years ago. Pause to remember Michael D. Brown of FEMA fame and the disastrous job he did because he didn’t have experience. “Heckuva job, Brownie,” President Bush told him.

So you can learn from history. But right now, instead, voters decided to fuck around and find out. They were willing to take an ax to all of these programs, agencies, federal employees, alliances, trade agreements, and expertise.

Well, here it comes, brothers and sisters. You’re about to find out.

Here comes the Reciprocal Wave. I’d tell you to brace yourselves but do I need to?

History has already told us.

9

Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Recently caught two Paul Krugman articles. I read one yesterday. This was the post where he shared his tale about why he left the New York Times.

His story illuminated a lot for me. As 2024 progressed and I read his opinions, I thought, what is wrong with Paul Krugman? He is so much less insightful and he seems to be leaning toward the NYT bothsiderism plague. I often found myself begin to read him and then close it because, meh. After he left the Times and began writing on his own, I discovered that he’d regained his sharpness. I’m so much happier to have him out of the NYT yoke and free to comment on the world again, especially the Trumpworld.

Times editors — who deny this — became heavy-handed about Mr. Krugman’s opinions and insights. They rewrote his column, forcing him to rewrite the rewrites. It all became so dumbed down that it wasn’t worth reading.

But he’s back, baby.

That’s a natural transition to Mr. Krugman’s column today: Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would. Who Could Have Predicted That?

When democracies die, big business and wealthy individuals often play a crucial role in their demise. They provide a would-be strongman with financial support; their control of or influence over news media ensures that he receives favorable coverage, while his opponents are trashed. They do this because they expect to be rewarded with policies that favor their interests and imagine that they will in effect be shareholders in the new autocracy.

What comes next is familiar to anyone who studies history (which the oligarchs don’t.) Eventually it becomes clear that they don’t own the dictator they’ve helped install; he owns them. Maybe they’ll like some of his policies, maybe they won’t, but in any case they’re not in control — and they soon learn that criticizing the big man isn’t just fruitless, it’s dangerous.

In the past this script has typically taken a few years to play out, but this is the internet age, so right now in America the process seems to be taking only a few weeks.

Yep, Paul Krugman nailed it. Trump forced the GOP to be remade in his own image as the Grand Ol’ Trump Party. He brought on billionaires who are interested in having power and money. So guess what, GOP stalwarts? You guys aren’t needed any longer.

MAGA supporters? Naw, Trump can show now that he doesn’t give a shit about you, either.

Rural voters and Evangelicals who said that he shares your values, tells us like it is, and says what we’re thinking? You must have been thinking that th United States doesn’t need a democratic republic any longer. You must have thought that your freedoms and rights would be okay because Trump is like us.

If you haven’t realized yet, he is not like you, not unless you’re white, male, wealthy, selfish, racist, and sexist.

As for you folks who thought he would end wars, cut inflation, and make the United States a better place to live, man are you in for a fucking awakening. Talk ’bout woke! You’ll be woke as the deficit climbs and supply shortages and high prices gut the economy. Bet you’ll be woke as inflation rises and rises.

Those of you who wrung your hands and whined, “The Democrats don’t care about the cost of living enough, so I’m voting for Trump,” have fucked around. If you haven’t found out, you will.

I’ll take it back to Paul Krugman’s post from today to close.

As I get ready to hit the publish button, stock futures are down — but not nearly as much as the situation seems to warrant. Investors still seem to believe that there’s a good chance that Trump will use some minor concessions (about what?) to declare victory and dial the tariffs back. As I wrote about the same time Goldman and Dimon were telling us to chill out, this market complacency is a self-defeating prophecy: muted market reaction makes it likely that Trump will continue and expand his trade war.

And even if some of the tariffs prove temporary, the Rubicon has been crossed. We now know that when the United States signs an agreement, on trade or anything else, the president will treat that agreement as a mere suggestion to be ignored whenever he feels like it. That revelation in itself will do huge long-term damage.

All of this was entirely predictable. But there are none so blind as those who will not see.

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