Being the global reserve currency brings immense advantages: lower borrowing costs, persistent demand for sovereign debt, and unparalleled financial influence. But reserve status is not a birthright. It comes with stringent, often overlooked requirements. In a world where the safety-liquidity-return hierarchy governs global capital flows, breaching the “safety” pillar would be the most dangerous move of all.
The dollar as reserve currency is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. There's no excising the rot now, our nation is a joke being run by gaslighting grifters and billionaires like Musk who have revealed they are actually idiots too. Nobody sane will be parking capital in the US anytime soon. The destruction the past three months has done to our already shaky international reputation is generational. It will take a little while for nations and companies to fully divest themselves and spin up alternatives, but most probably China is about to eat Americas lunch and become the new global hegemon. If Trump lets them take Taiwan without a fight which is very likely then that will be guaranteed.
What's destroyed our national reputation? Probably not the long-term damages like gutting science, universities, etc. More likely it's (1) the tariffs, and not tariffs as such but the crazy original calculation that was on a 9-year-old's intellectual level plus the unpredictable changes, and (2) the arbitrary and deliberately cruel deportations along with jailing etc. of visitors, showing complete contempt for the most basic law.
Definitely. A literal rock would have been a better President than Trump has been so far - a strategy of "do absolutely nothing" would have had better results so far.
Very much agree, but when taking all of the actions together (see the full scope of EOs) it surely doesn't seem that "better results" for the people is the goal or even a goal.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the goal is simply to fulfill a few individuals' sadistic fantasies of watching the 99.9% suffer. Is it this simple?
Make no mistake. Musk and Trump et al almost certainly really believe that they are serving the interests of the nation with these ludicrous policies. They really are that self-deluded and ignorant.
The image of billionaires taking support away from the most vulnerable of Americans will be the new image of what America represents. We have committed national suicide.
What should our policies be instead of the hot pile of burning garbage that we see now? I don't know the answer to that Q, but to better think about this, I would encourage serious folks to listen to the April 15, 2025 episode of The Ezra Klein Show podcast ("Tom Friedman Thinks We're Getting China Dangerously Wrong."). Tom Friedman makes a very compelling case that China is in a very different and significantly more advanced place than it was before Covid, but unfortunately almost all of our politicians (D and R) are crafting policies towards the pre-Covid China or even toward China of 15 years ago. My own professional observations on the overwhelming number of new patent applications coming out of China would appear to support Friedman's assessment on their progression. Moreover, the information presented by Friedman further reinforces Professor Krugman's article posted on April 16, "Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War."
I am now hoping to get my elected politicians, or really their policy folks, to digest and consider Friedman's arguments asap. Are there other excellent thought pieces in this same vein that I can look into and point them towards? Maybe there are some serious think tanks developing more updated policy roadmaps which better incorporate the current facts on the ground in China?
I believe it is preferable to distinguish between the reputation of a government, and the reputation of a country, i.e. what one could call a "national reputation."
IMHO you may be correct in diagnosing certain actions as causing reputational damage, but I think this reputational damage is inflicted on the government, not the country.
What destroyed the US's reputation as a country was the re-election of Donald Trump. 70% of Americans knowingly sacrificed human dignity and the rule of law because they wanted cheaper groceries, or simply could not abide a nonwhite female as POTUS.
That stain won't rub off in the foreseeable future.
Many thanks. If you're interested, you might want to have a look at my note on the parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022.
I'm glad you found it helpful. I'm working on building my Substack profile with the goal of making complex concepts more accessible, drawing on my professional background to do so. I hope you'll consider subscribing, and if you know anyone who might appreciate this kind of approach, any word of mouth is more than welcome!
I am not sure if those investors really understand German politics. We are an export nation that has decided we don't really like foreigners and deportation should be the main policy focus. The government coalition is unstable before it has even started, parts of the prospective chancellor's party would prefer a coalition with the anti EU, pro Trump, pro Putin extreme right wing AfD, and members of both coalition parties have expressed a wish to normalize relations with Russia. And since basically everything you want to mobilize for European defense will have to move through Germany at some point, there is no European defense without a German government that approves of this. So the current lack of political stability in Germany is quite literally end-of-western-civilization stuff, but seems to be largely ignored.
That's still a far cry from what is happening in the US though. And the AfD is highly unpopular in former West Germany, it only managed to convince part of East Germany, which is logical: former USSR states were subjected to savage, neoliberal capitalism right after the wall came down, and at the same time, you cannot just "delete" a dictatorship, so much of the corruption and totalitarian thinking (and cynicism and mistrust) remains present for decades, history shows.
Fragmentation risk within Europe is decreasing and global interest is not only supporting core Eurozone debt, but is also extending to other sovereign issuers across the region, reflecting a broader reappraisal of European assets as viable, stable stores of value.
This is correct. I'll just add another caveat to the discussion above.
Any of you US readers who might doubt that we Europeans are watching and adapting to the collapse of US stability and influence: Think again. We're not going to be dragged down into Trumpworld. Not happening.
Yes. I'm glad to see Marine Le Penn was barred from running. She was a strong supporter of the law until she got caught up in it. Trump should have been barred from running.
Europe needs to find a balance between free speech and harmful propaganda. Maybe more consequences for some forms of lying.
My question is what can you invest in with retirement funds. I do hold foreign equities but its through a US brokerage. I trust them to do what's in their best interest which may be at odds with mine when the shit hits the fan.
There’s a growing scarcity of safe haven assets. Gold is certainly one, but it’s a temporary solution. The financial community is now looking at other assets with similar size, sophistication, and reliability as the dollar. Perhaps the euro?
Be aware that gold has finally in real terms matched its 1980 high of $850 ($3200 in $2025). So adjusted for inflation, if you bought gold then, 45 years later you have broken even. Not counting any storage or insurance costs.
In an Economist podcast months ago, they discussed the renewed interest in gold among nations and the rich as a hedge against chaos. The ending statement was gold is fine for nations and the rich but for individuals people with guns can come and take your gold.
• we won’t be afford to buy their products (tariffs)
• other countries will trade with China & STOP trading with us
• countries will and have stopped vacationing here (in protest & for fear of their personal safety)
• we will lose much more $$ (job loss, tax paying migrants gone, products not being purchased, watchdogs from IRS that brought in billions from tax cheats gone)
• intellectuals, professors & scientists are leaving our country
• our allies don’t trust us anymore or believe us (we will be vulnerable to attack)
• China will invade Tawain & we will be too weak to stop them
In my opinion as a random stranger on the internet is no. This is mostly because of the transaction costs and volatility of the price of gold. Plus a lot of so-called gold investments are a kind of scammy nonsense they sell on TV commercials. Even if you’re buying gold at Costco and putting it in your safe at home there’s chance of it getting stolen, which while unlikely could be catastrophic. It is fun to talk politics online, but please please please consult an independent financial advisor that’s not a salesman for any big decisions (not an Edward Jones type as they’re a ripoff too IMO)
Paul: you offer immaculate, trustworthy analysis, which is a superpower. But some of us, aka, me, could use a simplified occasional sound bite. Re: tariffs and “we’re all gonna be rich!” So, US citizens are taxed on imports. So then we will presumably scramble to find a domestic substitute of equal price which means labor costs would need to equal that of, say, Vietnam. So our wages would actually need to decrease to rival overseas labor costs. If we don’t have said product, we will build a factory to manufacture it. So, entrepreneurs will be rushing to build big new factories which will take many years to do (if ever). In the meantime, we are taking our medicine and can just suck it up until the US has so many wonderful factories that we become completely independent of the world. I have the honor of getting rich by working in said factory. But in the meantime the rest of the world keeps purchasing our glorious US products because they are so glorious. And the “We’re all gonna get rich” part is what? I am missing that tidbit. Anyway this is as much as my noneconomic brain can compute. And I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat as me. And the fairytale I told above isn’t even quite right I imagine. If people really understood the “tariff fairytale” they would be terrified just as are your readers who are wondering how to buy German bonds. It would be useful and helpful to have a succinct soundbite summary of your elegant analyses so that the masses understand. Help and thank you for all you do.
"Full faith and credit" in US govt. bonds, in its currency, and in its essential credibility by ROW and trading partners gave this country the massive economic and financial powers that accrued to a "benevolent hegemon", and to which tRump has put his flame-thrower. The extent of the ensuing damage is only now becoming obvious, but much more serious effects are yet to come, due to the unprecedented instability of US policies under tRump, and as he frantically spins the roulette wheel, who knows into which slot the ball will drop, and if indeed the croupier won't nudge it at the final rotation elsewhere.
He bankrupted his own casinos, so why not his country?
It's much simpler than it seems. You don't buy snake oil because you don't trust the salesman, and you shouldn't invest in assets without considering a) the risk-adjusted expected return and b) a risk premium (think back to the CDO crisis in 2007/8). Stephen Miran, the Chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, stated, "The U.S. dollar is the reserve asset in large part because America provides stability, liquidity, market depth, and the rule of law." [See page 11 here: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf]
The advantages you mentioned—such as lower borrowing costs, persistent demand for sovereign debt, and unparalleled financial influence—will soon (perhaps starting now?) include a 'rule of law' risk premium correlated to U.S. trade policy recklessness.
The Trump administration is actively dismantling many of the institutional and intellectual pillars that once made America great. The recent authoritarian pressure on elite academic institutions—particularly the Ivy League—illustrates this trend. Thankfully, Harvard has taken a stand, but the broader message is clear and troubling: dissent, critical thought, and academic independence are under attack. As a result, we’re now witnessing an unprecedented flow of professors, students, and doctoral candidates to Europe—something that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
As a European, I enjoy this intellectual migration—it enriches our institutions and boosts our global competitiveness. But for the U.S., this represents a profound strategic loss: a hollowing out of the very talent pool that has driven American innovation, research, and global influence for decades.
On the economic front, the situation is no less concerning. Although no formal policy has yet been enacted, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the long-term objective of the Trump administration is to monetize the national debt—an approach that would involve the Federal Reserve purchasing government bonds to cover budget shortfalls. While this may sound technical, the consequences would be anything but: it’s essentially a modern form of seigniorage, a politically driven manipulation of monetary policy that risks igniting severe inflationary pressures.
We saw a preview of this dynamic in early April, when reports emerged that the Fed was considering stepping in to purchase U.S. Treasuries after a noticeable shortage of buyers. This isn’t just a technical market intervention—it’s a warning sign. It suggests that the administration is not ruling out pressuring the Fed to finance fiscal deficits by absorbing excess debt. If this trend continues, the result could be a loss of central bank independence and a rapid erosion of investor confidence in the U.S. economy.
Ironically, this could backfire spectacularly on Trump himself. During the 2024 presidential campaign, inflation—largely caused by exogenous shocks like the pandemic—was one of the most damaging issues for President Biden and the Democrats, contributing heavily to their drop in the polls. If Trump pursues debt monetization, he may end up recreating the very conditions that once undermined his political rivals (inflation)—only this time, with no one else to blame.
Excellent comment. Europe should build a trading coalition with other nations committed to the rule of law. The EU also should also consider expanding it's issuing of government bonds, both to finance it's rearmament and potentially replace the dollar as the world's principle reserve currency.
Yes. And please recall: the EU is, among other things, a trading coalition committed to the rule of law. We are going to rise to this challenge, and thrive.
Pushing Europe to the edge of a precipice may seem like a brilliant tactical move. But strategically? Some signals are already visible: after a decade of persisting underperformance, European equities have significantly outperformed U.S. stocks since the beginning of 2025. The Euro is soaring against the Dollar. The gap to be filled is still huge. But international investors are astute; they understand long-term dynamics. They move real money, not dumb money.
President Biden wasn't pushed out of the campaign and VP Harris didn't lose the election because of inflation. That's the smokescreen pushed by the corporate media. We're dealing with an enraged cadre of bigots who'd rather stick a sharp pole up their nether orifice than be "ruled over" by a woman, let alone a Black woman.
I’m not American, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of people who voted for Trump did so for the reasons you describe. Personally, I don’t think it’s fair—or accurate—to reduce the Trump phenomenon to just a mass of bigots or fools. Like it or not, the Trump administration came to power through a democratic vote.
It’s important to analyze these political shifts seriously and not just dismiss them as irrational hate. Oversimplifying the motivations of millions of voters doesn’t help us understand the deeper social and economic dynamics that are clearly at play in the U.S. right now.
I don't want to give you a reading list, but you should try to learn more about the deep and abiding bigotry of a nation founded on a colonialism that included elimination of Native peoples and on slavery. From the beginning of the founding of the republic, compromises with the Southern states have sapped democracy. I recommend the renowned historian Heather Cox Richardson's How the South Won the Civil War as a first step.
Feel free to share the full list of books you recommend. That said, I tend to reject any analysis of Trump's elections that simply paints it as a story of an angry mob voting for a leader. For the First time, since 2004, more people voted Republican than Democrat. This kind of outrage-focused narrative—blaming the opposition without offering any concrete alternative—is exactly what’s enabling the current Italian government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to remain unchallenged. So instead of just expressing moral outrage and reducing Republican voters to a bunch of angry sheep, maybe it’s time we start focusing on serious, alternative models of governance—ones that can actually compete with the likes of Trump.
Incumbents the world over got blamed for the covid induced inflation. After we got rid of Trump, Biden literally handled it better than every other nation on Earth and the voters got mad and blamed him anyways because the media refused to explain the truth and kept amplifying Trump's lies.
You're reducing my point to a simplistic explanation, and it's more historically and politically based than you give me credit for. But if you want to elevate the drumpf voters to people who are rational without taking into account the documented white-male-grievance-based vote, then you're pretty much in the space of corporate media, who are constantly advising Democrats as to what to do to win voters back. I'd nothing better, but no matter how stellar a candidate, no-information aggrieved voters will not be swayed by programs that would benefit them financially, which Harris proposed in detail, with actual dollar numbers attached.
You have two constituencies: the MAGA people and the people who were dissatisfied with Biden & the price of eggs. You might look at the UK where a combination of right wing voters and low-information voters who believed the Brexit nonsense managed to get Brexit done. Now here we are billions of £s adrift, no "sunlit uplands" and becoming poorer by the day as people cry "I didn't think voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party meant MY face would be eaten" All you have to do is watch a few of the "I didn't think tariffs would put MY business at risk" videos so prevalent these days to see what your future will be like. The problem is the MAGA faithful will support Trump forever, but the people having their faces eaten won't be so enthusiastic. This is already a disaster and will get worse. There is a silver lining though, but probably only for people living in the UK where hatred for Trump is such that it is likely we will be petitioning to have closer ties to the EU again and reject the brexity nonsense. It's an ill wind and all that....
That's great for the UK, but it'll be very hard to dislodge drumpf and his gang. He's already talking about remaining in power forever, and now that he's got the military suborned, who'll fight against him?
Quite so, since the Jim Crow laws in the South against Blacks were adopted wholesale by the Nazi ideologues. But the North was not stainless. Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court when he declared, in 1928, that "three generations of imbeciles" were enough and allowed the state of Virginia--the whole of the U.S. in fact--to sterilize those "unfit" for reproduction. The defense at the Nuremberg trials quoted that decision.
Motivation is never simple, that's for sure. That's the nature of human perception: the brain filters current experience through the lens of everything the person has ever experienced, focusing on the patterns that show the biggest threats or the best opportunities.
Think of a smile on a handsome face. Now think of two identical toothy grins in the eye sockets of that handsome face. When seeing something like that, you don't have to measure the position from nose to eye, count the ears, parse the red shade of the lips, or track the angle of the eyebrows. Your current experience goes against a pattern built since infancy, and your brain immediately emphasizes the difference as a dangerous unknown.
Facial recognition bias is a core part of human cognition, developed at four months of age. But it's not the only bias tied to human physiology. Until we know someone well, we use visual/audio cues to generalize, and these cues vary widely within and across cultures.
These minute millisecond-to-millisecond cues hit a person's worldview like a constant rainstorm. The brain channels each signal down neural pathways, with better-reinforced pathways requiring lower concentrations of neurochemical for their neurons to fire.
Like water eroding a mountainside, these signals follow paths of least resistance, combining into streams of consciousness and rivers of thought before hollowing out bias canyons in a worldview. Bias is Latin for slope, fittingly enough.
The brain has a fixed order of operations, and if perception is at the peak, then thought, conclusions, communication, and actions operate in the valley. As you correctly put it, these can't be explained away by a single turn way up in the mountains.
At the same time, though, a strong enough fork in the earliest stages of perception can reroute a whole thought process to the opposite face, sending it through the jagged rapids of cognitive dissonance instead of the calm valley where rationality happens.
So in spite of decades of efforts to shift the troublesome biases that shred the fabric of society, America still has police with jumpy trigger fingers when facing down minorities, the mentally ill, or anyone else who doesn't match the expectations for an upstanding citizen. The transgender panic among conservatives stems from a similar core physical bias, which many people interpret as religious confirmation or simple common sense.
We end up with people like my in-laws who voted for Trump because they worried my sons would fight in WWIII if Harris won. They might not have used long-held gender assumptions to explain a position that Harris was too weak to stand up to the boys' club of dictators and fight for America. But that didn't mean those assumptions prevented arguments to the contrary from being dismissed at the top of the mountain.
Look up the backfire effect, a logical fallacy that kicks in when people are presented information that contradicts deeply-held beliefs. Instead of wondering if they're living their life in the wrong valley, they double down on the belief. It's no accident that conservative media uses the word fight every third sentence. You don't need evidence backed points if you keep their perception in the reactionary zone.
I think Trump level MAGAs overestimate little magas racism. There was video of Grassley confronted at a city hall meeting full of overweight old white men. They were furious about the man sent to El Salvador by "mistake". There is racism, but it isn't my father's era of racism.
Representation has made a huge difference in the time since the civil rights movement—a difference in how new generations form their worldview of who can be part of their social group. We've gone from token minorities to colorblind casting, not to mention stories of LGBTQ people.
This representation isn't going to penetrate the platinum blonde wall of Fox News or NewsMax, but the little magas who have lives outside that bubble have countercurrents that muddy the waters. When MAGA asks them to believe the party line instead of their lying eyes, their firmer grip on reality helps them recognize Trump's exaggerations and abuses.
I would venture some of those overweight farmers aren’t happy with trump on a number of fronts: tariffs affecting their crops, deportation of farm workers or maybe they said screw this BS and left, increases in prices for equipment, loss of their retirement savings, SS?Medicare to name a few.
Frankly, the only reason I see that people voted for Trump is that they own the liberals, who they, misogynistic fucks and white supremacists see as weak. In any conversation I've had with them, they are nothing about policy, grift, con, and details. Just owning the libs is the mantra, period.
Trump's base voted due to sexism and bigotry, particularly anti-immigrant bigotry. They make up about three quarters of those who voted for him. The other quarter are low information voters who actually believed he would roll back inflation. A negligible number were rich people who thought he'd lower their taxes.
Humans are worse than I ever would have believed before 2016.
Misogyny and racism are real, of course. But I do believe that what the GOP leadership and their media INVENTED about inflation was the main reason why Harris lost - combined with the corporate media being laser-focused on Biden's age rather than informing people, day after day, of his absolutely stellar record, including the economy.
Stable, normal Joe Biden wasn’t the clickbait Trump is, which resulted in financial losses and staffing reductions at the Washington Post and NYT. So they sold out for short term financial reasons but like the law firms Dr. Krugman mentioned, they lost for the long term.
The Trump coalition that got him elected is a group with overlapping interests. Think of a Venn diagram of these 5 groups. Racists may be the largest circle in the diagram; I don't know. To me, the Greedy are the most vile.
1. The Racists - 'nuff said
2. The Fetus-Worshipers - single issue abortion voters
3. The Angry - losers in the inequality/globalization game who need someone to blame
4. The Truly Misinformed/Disinformed - that may be letting people off the hook, and perhaps this circle overlaps completely with others, but I don't think we can let the role of Rupert Murdoch and Russia be forgotten
5. The Greedy - only care about low taxes and deregulation; those who don't overlap with other circles are particularly heinous because they know (or at least they thought they knew) what was coming vis-a-vis racism, immigration, destruction of our alliances abroad, etc., and they are okay with that. These are the people now who are saying, "Wait a minute! I didn't know he was really going to do tariffs" but don't care about any of the rest of what's happening.
I think you forgot a key group, the misogynistic/incels who hate women and love the idea of taking them down a notch or 12...lots of overlap with the angry and the losers.
Maybe I should call Group 4 "The Russian Influenced." I do think Rupert Murdoch has a lot of guilt here, too. When I was canvassing, I went to so many houses that had Fox News playing in the background. Virtually all the people who answered the door in those houses told me that Immigration was the #1 problem in America. (This was in Michigan and Wisconsin.)
To your last paragraph. Trump can (and does) safely ignore drops in the polls. Under the current Constitution, he cannot run again, in which case, his lack of popularity won't matter. And if he manages to cancel future elections to stay in power, his lack of popularity also won't matter.
Not to worry, he will still blame Biden for any inflation that occurs during the next 4 years, and 40% of the public will agree. We are truly living in fantasy land.
Just by reading the opening lines of the Notes on the Crisis article, it’s already clear—as the author himself acknowledges—that there are real limits to a government’s ability to refinance its debt purely through money creation. If that weren’t the case, the Weimar Republic wouldn’t be remembered as an economic disaster, where people needed wheelbarrows full of cash just to buy a loaf of bread.
Yes, the U.S. government can refinance its public debt, but this should only be done in exceptional situations—like during the pandemic—through quantitative easing, when there’s a clear lack of private buyers. But if the government needs to step in during a time of record employment and strong GDP growth, as is the case now, that signals a lack of credibility. Private buyers are pulling away, and the central bank is being forced to intervene and purchase U.S. debt.
This isn’t quantitative easing—America doesn’t currently need an economic stimulus, because we’re not facing an economic shock. What we’re seeing is an artificial crisis, deliberately created under Trump’s policies, and it’s economically reckless.
I'll assume you agree that the US never needs to sell bonds, because you skipped right past that and moved the goalposts to the hyperinflation bogeyman.
Weimar happened because Germany was required to pay significantly large war reparations in gold and, importantly, raw materials. Germany defaulted multiple times, motivating France to occupy the Ruhr for a couple of years to extract the coal and other commodities it was owed. As a result, Germany experienced major shortages of key resources, and hyperinflation occurred.
Zimbabwe botched a land reform project by giving farmland to non-farmers. Food production fell precipitously, and prices for the little remaining food skyrocketed. Same story: major shortage of a key resource, and poof! hyperinflation.
Same story in Sri Lanka a few years ago. The President decided to ban synthetic fertilizers and pesticides on short notice with no preparation. The following year, food production plummeted. Prices go up.
Regarding Treasury-issued debt instruments, they exist for 2 reasons: 1, they're essential to managing the Federal Funds Rate; 2, they're useful, risk-free places to park a lot of money for pension funds and the wealthy. The US don't need them and they are in no sense borrowing.
Finally, Trump (who we all agree is the source of the credibility problems) is intentionally destroying the US and Europe to satisfy Putin. For more, see https://thesabot.substack.com/p/veritas?r=45iry
I mostly wish that the Trump government is overcome so that the world may be yet saved, but by now I also wish for it simply so that Paul Krugman finally can take a day off. Thank you, the work you put in is very much appreciated.
I wonder how much longer it will take Congress to take concrete action. Congress’ acquiescence is absolutely frustrating because there is nobody stronger than Congress to stop Trump. In Federalist 51, Madison talk about the importance of checks and balances; has everyone in Congress really forgotten what the framers’ worst fears were? We are watching them play out and no Republican in Congress is willing to take effective action.
Republicans in congress are getting what they have always wanted. Why was the R party moderate center so easily routed? I think it is because in their heart-of-hearts, they find philosophical agreement with authoritarian systems. Conservatives lean heavily toward the 'strict father' mode of being.
I live in a very red congressional district where it isn't unusual for an R candidate to Garner +70% of the vote. If elections were held today, they would win again hands down. They know their God and guns base.
A very sad situation because those folks will suffer just as much as is liberals under Trump. I see it as part of the dumbing down of America. They were conned!
Conned? Well, yes and no. They will pay an unexpected economic price, and as you note it could well be higher than the average downside. However, at least by their perceptions validating white supremacy, patriarchy - keeping women 'in their place' , advancing christian nationalism, and owning the libs, are all things that give them the warm fuzzies.
Trump has succeeded in weaponizing a coalition of the ignorant in the unending culture war. Project 2025 dovetails nicely with that.
I feel somewhat sorry for the clueless people who thought a vote for trump would improve their economic well being. Perhaps, with backs against the wall economically, they felt they had nothing to lose.
I think that ship sailed when Senate Republicans wouldn’t convict him for either the Very Perfect Phone Call nor the failed Fake Elector Plot to steal the 2020 election.
Plus President Trump’s polling numbers are still higher than they were in this point in 2017, which remains a bit baffling to me.
That’s exactly how the Chinese see it. I was listening to a podcast from the Economist magazine out of Beijing . They see Trump as a demented, revengeful, old man who will bring the US down just like Mao destroyed China. Very scary!
I'm not sure if they're effecting a Red Guard moment or collecting info for Elon to blackmail people with. They've been more effective at hacking the US government computer systems and they've stolen more sensitive data than any russian, North Korean or Chinese hacker.
Did you hear about this? This is BIG! A DANGER to our country!
“DOGE May Have Caused Significant Cyberbreach”. A whistleblower at the NLRB said someone with a Russian ip address got into their system. The system is connected to Starlink.
The pro bono legal services that Trump demands are puzzling. Will the lawyers who provide them defend his kidnapping and deporting people without due process? Justice Department lawyers are already doing that. Will the pro bono lawyers litigate to overturn the 2026 elections that Democrats win? I'd think that Justice Department lawyers can do that, at least with respect to congressional, as opposed to state, elections. Even if they cannot legally do that, Trump can have them do it, because the Republican politicians on the Supreme Court have declared him above the law. So why does he need pro bono assistance? It's not too late for those law firms to reverse their capitulation and salvage some of their honor.
I think lawyers who prostrate themselves are a trophy of sorts (which maliciously stupid person does not enjoy smarter persons bowing to them?). Also being able to kick people who have already surrendered communicates in itself that he does not feel bound by any law, promise or convention, so I guess having them around to humiliate them is of greater value for Trump than any actual work they might provide.
It creates conflicts. If the lawyer does pro bono work for one side of a controversial issue it becomes much harder (rising to impossible, depending on the specifics of the controversy) to work for those who are on the other side of the issue.
I think you hit the nail on the head. it becomes harder and harder to get legal representation to defend your rights against (semi) governmental institutions or Trump loyalists.
There are only so many DOJ lawyers,some have quit, and they're already very, very, busy defending Trump/DOGE. Who's going to investgate Krebs, Taylor, et al ?
How likely is it that Trump will ask his pro bono lawyers to work on cases which benefit him personally? Will they appear on actions relating to the E. Jean Carroll case or his criminal conviction in New York? Or on behalf of Trump in dealing with putting up golf courses or developments in other countries or perhaps working on creating Gaza Riviera? “Well that would be contrary to the ‘agreement’ with the law firms and the contrary to the law”, you say. But then when has Trump worried about agreements or the law?
What do you know? Trump is trying to get the government to pay for his appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case. He's not telling the craven law firms to do it, but he wants the Department of Justice to handle it. Federal law provides that, if a federal employee is sued for something he did in his official capacity, then the government foots the bill. Trump is claiming that he defamed Carroll in his official capacity.
The article notes that the permits government employees to petition courts to certify they were acting within the scope of their office "at any time before trial." That makes Trump's claim frivolous, and the court could sanction him for filing a frivolous claim.
I agree, and I believe that there is a 100% chance that he'll use the law firms to benefit himself personally. He's never distinguished his own interests from the government's, having illegally rented rooms in his hotels to foreign officials, spent millions of government dollars to cheat at golf, and there must be many other examples. Apart from staying out of prison, the reason he wants to be president is to make money off it.
Angry voters, flagrantly lied to by Trump, gave him the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Justice Dept. and all the levers of government. This is what happens when a tyrannical character who believes laws are for suckers and life is a zero-sum game of winners and losers seizes power. We're in uncharted, turbulent waters.
Lots of anger and lots of hate. Was there ever one America except in our imaginations? As bad as I thought things were, they are clearly much worse. Trump is hellbent on destroying everything if he doesn’t get his way and probably even if he does. But it was the voters, it was America that gave him the launch codes.
Yes, we are in uncharted, turbulent waters and a hurricane is heading our way.
Didn't want to go there in my comment, but you're right that wedge issues, hatred, bigotry, grievance, retribution and vengeance anointed Donald Trump. It doesn't make me feel very good about many of my fellow Americans.
Paul, you say our country’s ability to service our debt is at risk. Trump has a habit of stiffing his creditors. Was to stop him from saying we need to stop paying foreigners and claim our debt is zero?
The floated idea of converting existing debt to interest free 100 year bonds is exactly that. Nothing will stop him, least of all that it will break the US (and maybe the world) economy, it's just that it will not accomplish any goal.
Resonable. If you're interested, you might want to have a look at my note on the parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022.
Very good explanation of the UK experience, even for an econ-novice like me. My fear is a much worse outcome for the U.S. given our president’s need for bigly actions
You’re right about the worse outcome. The US presidency is a set term of four years. It’s much easier to get rid of a lousy prime minister than a terrible president.
These “big”, “powerful”, “rich”, law firms that so shamelessly capitulated to Trump, like many Americans who buried their heads in the sand, proved that they have no dignity. When you kowtow to a fraudster you prove that you accept their immorality.
I have been arguing this exact analysis for so long it's almost embarrassing to think it bears new reporting.
Collective leadership will always defeat authoritarianism because the give and take needed to develop policy ensures acceptance, which in turn ensures durability.
Think Stalingrad. That was the doomsday of Nazi Germany. After Stalingrad Germany was on the defensive. Hitler's generals argued for a breakout and orderly retreat which would have preserved German capability, not to mention its sense of inevitability. But Hitler insisted on staying and fighting. The result was an unmitigated disaster. Morale crumbled as the German soldier finally understood the folly of its leadership.
Now, what may not be as well appreciated is the superiority of the Democratic Party vs the GOP. The former is a coalition, requiring collective leadership, while the latter has become a servant to the autocrat.
People often decrde the seeming chaos of the Democrats, but their diversity is a strength. Think of what they have accomplished: durable programs like Social Security, Medicare, the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and so many more. By contrast what has the GOP achieved except for increasingly unpopular tax cuts? They are a one-trick pony.
Diversity and the atomization of power is/was the genius of the Constitution, and the men who created it. It produced the stability of policy e.g., the Rule of Law, that allowed us to flourish.
This really requires a whole book, there are so many strands to this story. But my index finger is getting tired.
Musical coda: John Denver, Hey it's Good to be Back Home Again
I fully grasp the unrestrained anger the MAGA community displays towards those they feel are undeserving of their success…built on the backs of MAGAites. It is those backs that are left behind, broken, and unable to taste even brief success. We cannot afford housing (it’s been turned into asset management for the wealthy) or with “aesthetically pleasing” yards that will be subject to fines by the “blight ordinances” because our backs are tired, and 24 hours/day only allows 3 shifts of work to pay the landlord/mortgage company and taxes, groceries, personal vehicles (because mass transit is unappealing to this country), childcare…if I can afford the medical/insurance industry’s bills…because it’s all built on industry. And it goes on. And the orange dictator has the MAGA crowd believing if they can taste success like he does, they’ll give him anything.
The sad irony is that is probably the only president who could actually deliver universal healthcare or a higher minimum wage just by clicking his fingers. But that obviously will never happen. And in some respects maybe that's a good thing because he could cement his dictatorship by actually giving the MAGA crowd something which would genuinely benefit them. Hitler alleviate unemployment to consolidate his power with popular support.
And to destroy the ACA, I'd surprised if he doesn't. (I think the entire world knows that Trump almost certainly ignored the Obama administration's Pandemic Plan because he was never going to risk looking less capable or intelligent than a Black person, especially Obama.)
Of course, such a plan would do away with coverage for preexisting conditions, and would contain huge gifts for Big Pharma, etc.
And Trump would tell America it was the "greatest healthcare on Earth", and they'd believe every word, even after the dying started. (I live in the Deep South, and I've yet to hear of anyone expressing regret for having sacrificing loved ones to the Trump/Covid Sacrificial Pyre.)
I'm beginning to believe that Trump's anger is substantially based on PEOPLE GETTING FREE STUFF. (Or to Trump, that's the interpretation, ignoring the BILLIONS in "free stuff" Trump has received, and is STILL receiving, and the genuine need of millions of struggling, hard working Americans.)
FREE green energy? - NO WAY!! If it doesn't come out of the ground, then NO ONE is GETTING RICH!
FREE heat and power (assistance) for the poorest Americans, those in greatest need? - NOPE! ("Let's see if they're too lazy to SHIVER in the winter cold!")
FREE health care for the poorest and neediest - Well, maybe. (Since the goal of healthcare in America is the enrichment of the RICHEST FEW (the 1% mostly), possible something OTHER THAN THE ACA is considered acceptable, as long as no one actually gets well.
"FREE" income in old age - "SORRY! Your social security has ALL been promised to "Leon" in exchange for his help burning America to the ground. (Even though it came from your earnings, out of your paycheck.) What, you thought Leon was willing to give up BILLION$ in earnings, and the destruction of his "reputation" for nothing?! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
I do regret that, in this context, things begin make a little "sense"...
Considering Trump has personally filed for 6 (?) bankruptcies, this is what he knows. The Doge cuts to IRS will likely reduce our ‘income’ by 500 billion over original projections-this year alone and, combined with our current high debt, the House wanting to extend the tax cuts, reduced tax revenue from the tariff effects, it’s a perfect storm of unsustainability. I think it would be the predicate for the administration to claim they ‘had to’ ‘do something’ about the debt and they’d ’restructure’ it, I’ve heard, changing the terms of bonds to 100 years? How is this not going to destroy us financially?
The parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022 are remarkable. Market confidence might evaporate very rapidly.
Being the global reserve currency brings immense advantages: lower borrowing costs, persistent demand for sovereign debt, and unparalleled financial influence. But reserve status is not a birthright. It comes with stringent, often overlooked requirements. In a world where the safety-liquidity-return hierarchy governs global capital flows, breaching the “safety” pillar would be the most dangerous move of all.
The dollar as reserve currency is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet. There's no excising the rot now, our nation is a joke being run by gaslighting grifters and billionaires like Musk who have revealed they are actually idiots too. Nobody sane will be parking capital in the US anytime soon. The destruction the past three months has done to our already shaky international reputation is generational. It will take a little while for nations and companies to fully divest themselves and spin up alternatives, but most probably China is about to eat Americas lunch and become the new global hegemon. If Trump lets them take Taiwan without a fight which is very likely then that will be guaranteed.
What's destroyed our national reputation? Probably not the long-term damages like gutting science, universities, etc. More likely it's (1) the tariffs, and not tariffs as such but the crazy original calculation that was on a 9-year-old's intellectual level plus the unpredictable changes, and (2) the arbitrary and deliberately cruel deportations along with jailing etc. of visitors, showing complete contempt for the most basic law.
9-yr-old? Please! I've known children that age who'd make better decisions than the monster at the helm.
Definitely. A literal rock would have been a better President than Trump has been so far - a strategy of "do absolutely nothing" would have had better results so far.
Very much agree, but when taking all of the actions together (see the full scope of EOs) it surely doesn't seem that "better results" for the people is the goal or even a goal.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the goal is simply to fulfill a few individuals' sadistic fantasies of watching the 99.9% suffer. Is it this simple?
Make no mistake. Musk and Trump et al almost certainly really believe that they are serving the interests of the nation with these ludicrous policies. They really are that self-deluded and ignorant.
The image of billionaires taking support away from the most vulnerable of Americans will be the new image of what America represents. We have committed national suicide.
We were all being fucked by billionaires under Biden too. Now they are taking it to the next level.
What should our policies be instead of the hot pile of burning garbage that we see now? I don't know the answer to that Q, but to better think about this, I would encourage serious folks to listen to the April 15, 2025 episode of The Ezra Klein Show podcast ("Tom Friedman Thinks We're Getting China Dangerously Wrong."). Tom Friedman makes a very compelling case that China is in a very different and significantly more advanced place than it was before Covid, but unfortunately almost all of our politicians (D and R) are crafting policies towards the pre-Covid China or even toward China of 15 years ago. My own professional observations on the overwhelming number of new patent applications coming out of China would appear to support Friedman's assessment on their progression. Moreover, the information presented by Friedman further reinforces Professor Krugman's article posted on April 16, "Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War."
I am now hoping to get my elected politicians, or really their policy folks, to digest and consider Friedman's arguments asap. Are there other excellent thought pieces in this same vein that I can look into and point them towards? Maybe there are some serious think tanks developing more updated policy roadmaps which better incorporate the current facts on the ground in China?
Appreciate folks' input here.
I believe it is preferable to distinguish between the reputation of a government, and the reputation of a country, i.e. what one could call a "national reputation."
IMHO you may be correct in diagnosing certain actions as causing reputational damage, but I think this reputational damage is inflicted on the government, not the country.
What destroyed the US's reputation as a country was the re-election of Donald Trump. 70% of Americans knowingly sacrificed human dignity and the rule of law because they wanted cheaper groceries, or simply could not abide a nonwhite female as POTUS.
That stain won't rub off in the foreseeable future.
Many thanks. If you're interested, you might want to have a look at my note on the parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/sero-sapiunt-fhriges?r=58uzcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Thanks for sharing. I would not have known this otherwise.
I'm glad you found it helpful. I'm working on building my Substack profile with the goal of making complex concepts more accessible, drawing on my professional background to do so. I hope you'll consider subscribing, and if you know anyone who might appreciate this kind of approach, any word of mouth is more than welcome!
Subscribed. Glad to and looking forward to more.
Stop SPAMMING!
Block her
If our dollar isn’t safe, what should we exchange it for? Should we buy gold?
German government bonds are increasingly favoured by investors as a safe haven.
I am not sure if those investors really understand German politics. We are an export nation that has decided we don't really like foreigners and deportation should be the main policy focus. The government coalition is unstable before it has even started, parts of the prospective chancellor's party would prefer a coalition with the anti EU, pro Trump, pro Putin extreme right wing AfD, and members of both coalition parties have expressed a wish to normalize relations with Russia. And since basically everything you want to mobilize for European defense will have to move through Germany at some point, there is no European defense without a German government that approves of this. So the current lack of political stability in Germany is quite literally end-of-western-civilization stuff, but seems to be largely ignored.
That's still a far cry from what is happening in the US though. And the AfD is highly unpopular in former West Germany, it only managed to convince part of East Germany, which is logical: former USSR states were subjected to savage, neoliberal capitalism right after the wall came down, and at the same time, you cannot just "delete" a dictatorship, so much of the corruption and totalitarian thinking (and cynicism and mistrust) remains present for decades, history shows.
Hence, Vance’s and Musk’s idiocy in that regard. Now you’ve scared me more.
Fragmentation risk within Europe is decreasing and global interest is not only supporting core Eurozone debt, but is also extending to other sovereign issuers across the region, reflecting a broader reappraisal of European assets as viable, stable stores of value.
This is correct. I'll just add another caveat to the discussion above.
Any of you US readers who might doubt that we Europeans are watching and adapting to the collapse of US stability and influence: Think again. We're not going to be dragged down into Trumpworld. Not happening.
Yeah, we know. Believe me, we know.
Yes. I'm glad to see Marine Le Penn was barred from running. She was a strong supporter of the law until she got caught up in it. Trump should have been barred from running.
Europe needs to find a balance between free speech and harmful propaganda. Maybe more consequences for some forms of lying.
The majority of us are not wanting anyone other than the U.S. to pay for this. The onus is upon us. Trust me, we want better heads to prevail.
How does one purchase Eurobonds from the US? Is there a recommended index fund on Vanguard?
How do you get German government bonds?
I would imagine there are funds or ETFs you can invest in.
try for example https://www.ishares.com/uk/individual/en/products/251744/ishares-germany-government-bond-ucits-etf
My question is what can you invest in with retirement funds. I do hold foreign equities but its through a US brokerage. I trust them to do what's in their best interest which may be at odds with mine when the shit hits the fan.
Thanks for the information.
There’s a growing scarcity of safe haven assets. Gold is certainly one, but it’s a temporary solution. The financial community is now looking at other assets with similar size, sophistication, and reliability as the dollar. Perhaps the euro?
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/the-uro-era?r=58uzcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Surely it’s going to be a basket. Diversity your store - maybe trade weighted for each country.
We need a DEI basket :)
Be aware that gold has finally in real terms matched its 1980 high of $850 ($3200 in $2025). So adjusted for inflation, if you bought gold then, 45 years later you have broken even. Not counting any storage or insurance costs.
In an Economist podcast months ago, they discussed the renewed interest in gold among nations and the rich as a hedge against chaos. The ending statement was gold is fine for nations and the rich but for individuals people with guns can come and take your gold.
To add insult to injury, other countries won’t:
• buy our products (tariffs)
• we won’t be afford to buy their products (tariffs)
• other countries will trade with China & STOP trading with us
• countries will and have stopped vacationing here (in protest & for fear of their personal safety)
• we will lose much more $$ (job loss, tax paying migrants gone, products not being purchased, watchdogs from IRS that brought in billions from tax cheats gone)
• intellectuals, professors & scientists are leaving our country
• our allies don’t trust us anymore or believe us (we will be vulnerable to attack)
• China will invade Tawain & we will be too weak to stop them
I will not continue vacationing in the US out of protest but out of fear for my personal safety.
If a bank gets robbed your money is insured. If you get robbed of your gold what do you do?
The value is the stable system you have been a part of. You should be calling your representative and demanding a stable system.
Beyond that you should be building a resilient local community you can depend on when the stable system is no more.
In my opinion as a random stranger on the internet is no. This is mostly because of the transaction costs and volatility of the price of gold. Plus a lot of so-called gold investments are a kind of scammy nonsense they sell on TV commercials. Even if you’re buying gold at Costco and putting it in your safe at home there’s chance of it getting stolen, which while unlikely could be catastrophic. It is fun to talk politics online, but please please please consult an independent financial advisor that’s not a salesman for any big decisions (not an Edward Jones type as they’re a ripoff too IMO)
Neodymium.
Paul: you offer immaculate, trustworthy analysis, which is a superpower. But some of us, aka, me, could use a simplified occasional sound bite. Re: tariffs and “we’re all gonna be rich!” So, US citizens are taxed on imports. So then we will presumably scramble to find a domestic substitute of equal price which means labor costs would need to equal that of, say, Vietnam. So our wages would actually need to decrease to rival overseas labor costs. If we don’t have said product, we will build a factory to manufacture it. So, entrepreneurs will be rushing to build big new factories which will take many years to do (if ever). In the meantime, we are taking our medicine and can just suck it up until the US has so many wonderful factories that we become completely independent of the world. I have the honor of getting rich by working in said factory. But in the meantime the rest of the world keeps purchasing our glorious US products because they are so glorious. And the “We’re all gonna get rich” part is what? I am missing that tidbit. Anyway this is as much as my noneconomic brain can compute. And I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat as me. And the fairytale I told above isn’t even quite right I imagine. If people really understood the “tariff fairytale” they would be terrified just as are your readers who are wondering how to buy German bonds. It would be useful and helpful to have a succinct soundbite summary of your elegant analyses so that the masses understand. Help and thank you for all you do.
The missing part is that when Trump says "We're all gonna get rich", you personally are not included in the "We" to which he refers.
"Full faith and credit" in US govt. bonds, in its currency, and in its essential credibility by ROW and trading partners gave this country the massive economic and financial powers that accrued to a "benevolent hegemon", and to which tRump has put his flame-thrower. The extent of the ensuing damage is only now becoming obvious, but much more serious effects are yet to come, due to the unprecedented instability of US policies under tRump, and as he frantically spins the roulette wheel, who knows into which slot the ball will drop, and if indeed the croupier won't nudge it at the final rotation elsewhere.
He bankrupted his own casinos, so why not his country?
Trumpnomics 101 :
We’ll lose a small amount on each transaction ( converting to long term debt ) , but we’ll make it up on volume.
gibberish and you know it
It's much simpler than it seems. You don't buy snake oil because you don't trust the salesman, and you shouldn't invest in assets without considering a) the risk-adjusted expected return and b) a risk premium (think back to the CDO crisis in 2007/8). Stephen Miran, the Chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, stated, "The U.S. dollar is the reserve asset in large part because America provides stability, liquidity, market depth, and the rule of law." [See page 11 here: https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/research/638199_A_Users_Guide_to_Restructuring_the_Global_Trading_System.pdf]
The advantages you mentioned—such as lower borrowing costs, persistent demand for sovereign debt, and unparalleled financial influence—will soon (perhaps starting now?) include a 'rule of law' risk premium correlated to U.S. trade policy recklessness.
The Trump administration is actively dismantling many of the institutional and intellectual pillars that once made America great. The recent authoritarian pressure on elite academic institutions—particularly the Ivy League—illustrates this trend. Thankfully, Harvard has taken a stand, but the broader message is clear and troubling: dissent, critical thought, and academic independence are under attack. As a result, we’re now witnessing an unprecedented flow of professors, students, and doctoral candidates to Europe—something that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
As a European, I enjoy this intellectual migration—it enriches our institutions and boosts our global competitiveness. But for the U.S., this represents a profound strategic loss: a hollowing out of the very talent pool that has driven American innovation, research, and global influence for decades.
On the economic front, the situation is no less concerning. Although no formal policy has yet been enacted, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the long-term objective of the Trump administration is to monetize the national debt—an approach that would involve the Federal Reserve purchasing government bonds to cover budget shortfalls. While this may sound technical, the consequences would be anything but: it’s essentially a modern form of seigniorage, a politically driven manipulation of monetary policy that risks igniting severe inflationary pressures.
We saw a preview of this dynamic in early April, when reports emerged that the Fed was considering stepping in to purchase U.S. Treasuries after a noticeable shortage of buyers. This isn’t just a technical market intervention—it’s a warning sign. It suggests that the administration is not ruling out pressuring the Fed to finance fiscal deficits by absorbing excess debt. If this trend continues, the result could be a loss of central bank independence and a rapid erosion of investor confidence in the U.S. economy.
Ironically, this could backfire spectacularly on Trump himself. During the 2024 presidential campaign, inflation—largely caused by exogenous shocks like the pandemic—was one of the most damaging issues for President Biden and the Democrats, contributing heavily to their drop in the polls. If Trump pursues debt monetization, he may end up recreating the very conditions that once undermined his political rivals (inflation)—only this time, with no one else to blame.
Excellent comment. Europe should build a trading coalition with other nations committed to the rule of law. The EU also should also consider expanding it's issuing of government bonds, both to finance it's rearmament and potentially replace the dollar as the world's principle reserve currency.
Yes. And please recall: the EU is, among other things, a trading coalition committed to the rule of law. We are going to rise to this challenge, and thrive.
Pushing Europe to the edge of a precipice may seem like a brilliant tactical move. But strategically? Some signals are already visible: after a decade of persisting underperformance, European equities have significantly outperformed U.S. stocks since the beginning of 2025. The Euro is soaring against the Dollar. The gap to be filled is still huge. But international investors are astute; they understand long-term dynamics. They move real money, not dumb money.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/europe-is-either-emerging-as-a-global?r=58uzcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Canada might be a good place to look for a trading partner. There’s Australia but it’s a long way off.
President Biden wasn't pushed out of the campaign and VP Harris didn't lose the election because of inflation. That's the smokescreen pushed by the corporate media. We're dealing with an enraged cadre of bigots who'd rather stick a sharp pole up their nether orifice than be "ruled over" by a woman, let alone a Black woman.
I’m not American, but I find it hard to believe that the majority of people who voted for Trump did so for the reasons you describe. Personally, I don’t think it’s fair—or accurate—to reduce the Trump phenomenon to just a mass of bigots or fools. Like it or not, the Trump administration came to power through a democratic vote.
It’s important to analyze these political shifts seriously and not just dismiss them as irrational hate. Oversimplifying the motivations of millions of voters doesn’t help us understand the deeper social and economic dynamics that are clearly at play in the U.S. right now.
If you lived here you would probably feel differently. It is hard to believe it but daily we get affirmation that it’s true.
I live in the south. It's hard to believe some of these people are actually real, but they are.
I don't want to give you a reading list, but you should try to learn more about the deep and abiding bigotry of a nation founded on a colonialism that included elimination of Native peoples and on slavery. From the beginning of the founding of the republic, compromises with the Southern states have sapped democracy. I recommend the renowned historian Heather Cox Richardson's How the South Won the Civil War as a first step.
Feel free to share the full list of books you recommend. That said, I tend to reject any analysis of Trump's elections that simply paints it as a story of an angry mob voting for a leader. For the First time, since 2004, more people voted Republican than Democrat. This kind of outrage-focused narrative—blaming the opposition without offering any concrete alternative—is exactly what’s enabling the current Italian government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to remain unchallenged. So instead of just expressing moral outrage and reducing Republican voters to a bunch of angry sheep, maybe it’s time we start focusing on serious, alternative models of governance—ones that can actually compete with the likes of Trump.
Incumbents the world over got blamed for the covid induced inflation. After we got rid of Trump, Biden literally handled it better than every other nation on Earth and the voters got mad and blamed him anyways because the media refused to explain the truth and kept amplifying Trump's lies.
I think opinion media and twitter had a lot to do with it.
You're reducing my point to a simplistic explanation, and it's more historically and politically based than you give me credit for. But if you want to elevate the drumpf voters to people who are rational without taking into account the documented white-male-grievance-based vote, then you're pretty much in the space of corporate media, who are constantly advising Democrats as to what to do to win voters back. I'd nothing better, but no matter how stellar a candidate, no-information aggrieved voters will not be swayed by programs that would benefit them financially, which Harris proposed in detail, with actual dollar numbers attached.
You have two constituencies: the MAGA people and the people who were dissatisfied with Biden & the price of eggs. You might look at the UK where a combination of right wing voters and low-information voters who believed the Brexit nonsense managed to get Brexit done. Now here we are billions of £s adrift, no "sunlit uplands" and becoming poorer by the day as people cry "I didn't think voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party meant MY face would be eaten" All you have to do is watch a few of the "I didn't think tariffs would put MY business at risk" videos so prevalent these days to see what your future will be like. The problem is the MAGA faithful will support Trump forever, but the people having their faces eaten won't be so enthusiastic. This is already a disaster and will get worse. There is a silver lining though, but probably only for people living in the UK where hatred for Trump is such that it is likely we will be petitioning to have closer ties to the EU again and reject the brexity nonsense. It's an ill wind and all that....
That's great for the UK, but it'll be very hard to dislodge drumpf and his gang. He's already talking about remaining in power forever, and now that he's got the military suborned, who'll fight against him?
Didn’t know about that book. It often seems to this Canadian observer Trumpism might have cultural roots in the old south.
Quite so, since the Jim Crow laws in the South against Blacks were adopted wholesale by the Nazi ideologues. But the North was not stainless. Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes wrote for the majority of the Supreme Court when he declared, in 1928, that "three generations of imbeciles" were enough and allowed the state of Virginia--the whole of the U.S. in fact--to sterilize those "unfit" for reproduction. The defense at the Nuremberg trials quoted that decision.
I ordered the recommended book.
Motivation is never simple, that's for sure. That's the nature of human perception: the brain filters current experience through the lens of everything the person has ever experienced, focusing on the patterns that show the biggest threats or the best opportunities.
Think of a smile on a handsome face. Now think of two identical toothy grins in the eye sockets of that handsome face. When seeing something like that, you don't have to measure the position from nose to eye, count the ears, parse the red shade of the lips, or track the angle of the eyebrows. Your current experience goes against a pattern built since infancy, and your brain immediately emphasizes the difference as a dangerous unknown.
Facial recognition bias is a core part of human cognition, developed at four months of age. But it's not the only bias tied to human physiology. Until we know someone well, we use visual/audio cues to generalize, and these cues vary widely within and across cultures.
These minute millisecond-to-millisecond cues hit a person's worldview like a constant rainstorm. The brain channels each signal down neural pathways, with better-reinforced pathways requiring lower concentrations of neurochemical for their neurons to fire.
Like water eroding a mountainside, these signals follow paths of least resistance, combining into streams of consciousness and rivers of thought before hollowing out bias canyons in a worldview. Bias is Latin for slope, fittingly enough.
The brain has a fixed order of operations, and if perception is at the peak, then thought, conclusions, communication, and actions operate in the valley. As you correctly put it, these can't be explained away by a single turn way up in the mountains.
At the same time, though, a strong enough fork in the earliest stages of perception can reroute a whole thought process to the opposite face, sending it through the jagged rapids of cognitive dissonance instead of the calm valley where rationality happens.
So in spite of decades of efforts to shift the troublesome biases that shred the fabric of society, America still has police with jumpy trigger fingers when facing down minorities, the mentally ill, or anyone else who doesn't match the expectations for an upstanding citizen. The transgender panic among conservatives stems from a similar core physical bias, which many people interpret as religious confirmation or simple common sense.
We end up with people like my in-laws who voted for Trump because they worried my sons would fight in WWIII if Harris won. They might not have used long-held gender assumptions to explain a position that Harris was too weak to stand up to the boys' club of dictators and fight for America. But that didn't mean those assumptions prevented arguments to the contrary from being dismissed at the top of the mountain.
Look up the backfire effect, a logical fallacy that kicks in when people are presented information that contradicts deeply-held beliefs. Instead of wondering if they're living their life in the wrong valley, they double down on the belief. It's no accident that conservative media uses the word fight every third sentence. You don't need evidence backed points if you keep their perception in the reactionary zone.
I think Trump level MAGAs overestimate little magas racism. There was video of Grassley confronted at a city hall meeting full of overweight old white men. They were furious about the man sent to El Salvador by "mistake". There is racism, but it isn't my father's era of racism.
Representation has made a huge difference in the time since the civil rights movement—a difference in how new generations form their worldview of who can be part of their social group. We've gone from token minorities to colorblind casting, not to mention stories of LGBTQ people.
This representation isn't going to penetrate the platinum blonde wall of Fox News or NewsMax, but the little magas who have lives outside that bubble have countercurrents that muddy the waters. When MAGA asks them to believe the party line instead of their lying eyes, their firmer grip on reality helps them recognize Trump's exaggerations and abuses.
I would venture some of those overweight farmers aren’t happy with trump on a number of fronts: tariffs affecting their crops, deportation of farm workers or maybe they said screw this BS and left, increases in prices for equipment, loss of their retirement savings, SS?Medicare to name a few.
Frankly, the only reason I see that people voted for Trump is that they own the liberals, who they, misogynistic fucks and white supremacists see as weak. In any conversation I've had with them, they are nothing about policy, grift, con, and details. Just owning the libs is the mantra, period.
Trump's base voted due to sexism and bigotry, particularly anti-immigrant bigotry. They make up about three quarters of those who voted for him. The other quarter are low information voters who actually believed he would roll back inflation. A negligible number were rich people who thought he'd lower their taxes.
Humans are worse than I ever would have believed before 2016.
Misogyny and racism are real, of course. But I do believe that what the GOP leadership and their media INVENTED about inflation was the main reason why Harris lost - combined with the corporate media being laser-focused on Biden's age rather than informing people, day after day, of his absolutely stellar record, including the economy.
Stable, normal Joe Biden wasn’t the clickbait Trump is, which resulted in financial losses and staffing reductions at the Washington Post and NYT. So they sold out for short term financial reasons but like the law firms Dr. Krugman mentioned, they lost for the long term.
The Trump coalition that got him elected is a group with overlapping interests. Think of a Venn diagram of these 5 groups. Racists may be the largest circle in the diagram; I don't know. To me, the Greedy are the most vile.
1. The Racists - 'nuff said
2. The Fetus-Worshipers - single issue abortion voters
3. The Angry - losers in the inequality/globalization game who need someone to blame
4. The Truly Misinformed/Disinformed - that may be letting people off the hook, and perhaps this circle overlaps completely with others, but I don't think we can let the role of Rupert Murdoch and Russia be forgotten
5. The Greedy - only care about low taxes and deregulation; those who don't overlap with other circles are particularly heinous because they know (or at least they thought they knew) what was coming vis-a-vis racism, immigration, destruction of our alliances abroad, etc., and they are okay with that. These are the people now who are saying, "Wait a minute! I didn't know he was really going to do tariffs" but don't care about any of the rest of what's happening.
I've started calling group 2 the Mother-killers.
I call them birth slavers.
That works too
Let's not forget Democrats who didn't go to the polls for whatever reason, some reasons overlapping with those listed above
I think you forgot a key group, the misogynistic/incels who hate women and love the idea of taking them down a notch or 12...lots of overlap with the angry and the losers.
Also overlap with the racists.
Good point!
You forgot the only member of his coalition that counts: Putin.
He's out to destroy the US and Europe at Putin's behest.
https://thesabot.substack.com/p/veritas?r=45iry
Maybe I should call Group 4 "The Russian Influenced." I do think Rupert Murdoch has a lot of guilt here, too. When I was canvassing, I went to so many houses that had Fox News playing in the background. Virtually all the people who answered the door in those houses told me that Immigration was the #1 problem in America. (This was in Michigan and Wisconsin.)
Makes sense, but Putin's really in a category of his own.
Don't lose sight of that; it explains all Trump's actions.
Thanks, Anca. I agree totally!!!
To your last paragraph. Trump can (and does) safely ignore drops in the polls. Under the current Constitution, he cannot run again, in which case, his lack of popularity won't matter. And if he manages to cancel future elections to stay in power, his lack of popularity also won't matter.
Not to worry, he will still blame Biden for any inflation that occurs during the next 4 years, and 40% of the public will agree. We are truly living in fantasy land.
The US already money-finances its spending.
https://open.substack.com/pub/nathantankus/p/the-federal-government-always-money
Just by reading the opening lines of the Notes on the Crisis article, it’s already clear—as the author himself acknowledges—that there are real limits to a government’s ability to refinance its debt purely through money creation. If that weren’t the case, the Weimar Republic wouldn’t be remembered as an economic disaster, where people needed wheelbarrows full of cash just to buy a loaf of bread.
Yes, the U.S. government can refinance its public debt, but this should only be done in exceptional situations—like during the pandemic—through quantitative easing, when there’s a clear lack of private buyers. But if the government needs to step in during a time of record employment and strong GDP growth, as is the case now, that signals a lack of credibility. Private buyers are pulling away, and the central bank is being forced to intervene and purchase U.S. debt.
This isn’t quantitative easing—America doesn’t currently need an economic stimulus, because we’re not facing an economic shock. What we’re seeing is an artificial crisis, deliberately created under Trump’s policies, and it’s economically reckless.
I'll assume you agree that the US never needs to sell bonds, because you skipped right past that and moved the goalposts to the hyperinflation bogeyman.
Weimar happened because Germany was required to pay significantly large war reparations in gold and, importantly, raw materials. Germany defaulted multiple times, motivating France to occupy the Ruhr for a couple of years to extract the coal and other commodities it was owed. As a result, Germany experienced major shortages of key resources, and hyperinflation occurred.
Zimbabwe botched a land reform project by giving farmland to non-farmers. Food production fell precipitously, and prices for the little remaining food skyrocketed. Same story: major shortage of a key resource, and poof! hyperinflation.
Same story in Sri Lanka a few years ago. The President decided to ban synthetic fertilizers and pesticides on short notice with no preparation. The following year, food production plummeted. Prices go up.
Regarding Treasury-issued debt instruments, they exist for 2 reasons: 1, they're essential to managing the Federal Funds Rate; 2, they're useful, risk-free places to park a lot of money for pension funds and the wealthy. The US don't need them and they are in no sense borrowing.
Finally, Trump (who we all agree is the source of the credibility problems) is intentionally destroying the US and Europe to satisfy Putin. For more, see https://thesabot.substack.com/p/veritas?r=45iry
I mostly wish that the Trump government is overcome so that the world may be yet saved, but by now I also wish for it simply so that Paul Krugman finally can take a day off. Thank you, the work you put in is very much appreciated.
I second that. Dr Krugman, please take a day or few. I’m certain Trump’s not going anywhere, whatever your or my desire might be.
I wonder how much longer it will take Congress to take concrete action. Congress’ acquiescence is absolutely frustrating because there is nobody stronger than Congress to stop Trump. In Federalist 51, Madison talk about the importance of checks and balances; has everyone in Congress really forgotten what the framers’ worst fears were? We are watching them play out and no Republican in Congress is willing to take effective action.
Republicans in congress are getting what they have always wanted. Why was the R party moderate center so easily routed? I think it is because in their heart-of-hearts, they find philosophical agreement with authoritarian systems. Conservatives lean heavily toward the 'strict father' mode of being.
I live in a very red congressional district where it isn't unusual for an R candidate to Garner +70% of the vote. If elections were held today, they would win again hands down. They know their God and guns base.
A very sad situation because those folks will suffer just as much as is liberals under Trump. I see it as part of the dumbing down of America. They were conned!
Conned? Well, yes and no. They will pay an unexpected economic price, and as you note it could well be higher than the average downside. However, at least by their perceptions validating white supremacy, patriarchy - keeping women 'in their place' , advancing christian nationalism, and owning the libs, are all things that give them the warm fuzzies.
Trump has succeeded in weaponizing a coalition of the ignorant in the unending culture war. Project 2025 dovetails nicely with that.
I feel somewhat sorry for the clueless people who thought a vote for trump would improve their economic well being. Perhaps, with backs against the wall economically, they felt they had nothing to lose.
Not sorry for them. Cheering for the leopards. And to think I used to be so empathetic ...
"I think it is because in their heart-of-hearts, they find philosophical agreement with authoritarian systems"
I believe this is also true for conservatives in many other Western countries.
I think that ship sailed when Senate Republicans wouldn’t convict him for either the Very Perfect Phone Call nor the failed Fake Elector Plot to steal the 2020 election.
Plus President Trump’s polling numbers are still higher than they were in this point in 2017, which remains a bit baffling to me.
And just like a Mob Boss, he needs one more favor. Letting Trump get his hooks into you is inviting a tick to feast on you.
What an apt analogy! The tick not only takes your blood but infects you with diseases.
What feels Maoist to me are the Musk kids ransacking through government offices, much like the Red Guard of the cultural revolution.
That’s exactly how the Chinese see it. I was listening to a podcast from the Economist magazine out of Beijing . They see Trump as a demented, revengeful, old man who will bring the US down just like Mao destroyed China. Very scary!
I'm not sure if they're effecting a Red Guard moment or collecting info for Elon to blackmail people with. They've been more effective at hacking the US government computer systems and they've stolen more sensitive data than any russian, North Korean or Chinese hacker.
Did you hear about this? This is BIG! A DANGER to our country!
“DOGE May Have Caused Significant Cyberbreach”. A whistleblower at the NLRB said someone with a Russian ip address got into their system. The system is connected to Starlink.
Mary Trump spells it out.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marytrump/p/the-further-depredations-of-doge
From MSNBC Rachel Maddow (video): MSNBC Rachel Maddow Apr 15, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/msnbc-rachel-maddow-video/id294055448
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355895/doge-musk-nlrb-takeaways-security
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/15/whistleblower-doge-cyber-breach-nlrb/83101252007/
The pro bono legal services that Trump demands are puzzling. Will the lawyers who provide them defend his kidnapping and deporting people without due process? Justice Department lawyers are already doing that. Will the pro bono lawyers litigate to overturn the 2026 elections that Democrats win? I'd think that Justice Department lawyers can do that, at least with respect to congressional, as opposed to state, elections. Even if they cannot legally do that, Trump can have them do it, because the Republican politicians on the Supreme Court have declared him above the law. So why does he need pro bono assistance? It's not too late for those law firms to reverse their capitulation and salvage some of their honor.
I think lawyers who prostrate themselves are a trophy of sorts (which maliciously stupid person does not enjoy smarter persons bowing to them?). Also being able to kick people who have already surrendered communicates in itself that he does not feel bound by any law, promise or convention, so I guess having them around to humiliate them is of greater value for Trump than any actual work they might provide.
Like the gold flowerpots on the oval office mantle-trophies. Children, wives, congress, country, a cognitive test.
It creates conflicts. If the lawyer does pro bono work for one side of a controversial issue it becomes much harder (rising to impossible, depending on the specifics of the controversy) to work for those who are on the other side of the issue.
I think you hit the nail on the head. it becomes harder and harder to get legal representation to defend your rights against (semi) governmental institutions or Trump loyalists.
There are only so many DOJ lawyers,some have quit, and they're already very, very, busy defending Trump/DOGE. Who's going to investgate Krebs, Taylor, et al ?
How likely is it that Trump will ask his pro bono lawyers to work on cases which benefit him personally? Will they appear on actions relating to the E. Jean Carroll case or his criminal conviction in New York? Or on behalf of Trump in dealing with putting up golf courses or developments in other countries or perhaps working on creating Gaza Riviera? “Well that would be contrary to the ‘agreement’ with the law firms and the contrary to the law”, you say. But then when has Trump worried about agreements or the law?
What do you know? Trump is trying to get the government to pay for his appeal in the E. Jean Carroll case. He's not telling the craven law firms to do it, but he wants the Department of Justice to handle it. Federal law provides that, if a federal employee is sued for something he did in his official capacity, then the government foots the bill. Trump is claiming that he defamed Carroll in his official capacity.
The article notes that the permits government employees to petition courts to certify they were acting within the scope of their office "at any time before trial." That makes Trump's claim frivolous, and the court could sanction him for filing a frivolous claim.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/justice-department-wants-to-step-in-for-trump-in-e-jean-carroll-appeal/ar-AA1D7EPX?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=84e74cf25ac5436ca64c6e770461ff2a&ei=8
I agree, and I believe that there is a 100% chance that he'll use the law firms to benefit himself personally. He's never distinguished his own interests from the government's, having illegally rented rooms in his hotels to foreign officials, spent millions of government dollars to cheat at golf, and there must be many other examples. Apart from staying out of prison, the reason he wants to be president is to make money off it.
Actually, I think sooner or later unrestrained presidential power is going to destroy America.
Angry voters, flagrantly lied to by Trump, gave him the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Justice Dept. and all the levers of government. This is what happens when a tyrannical character who believes laws are for suckers and life is a zero-sum game of winners and losers seizes power. We're in uncharted, turbulent waters.
Lots of anger and lots of hate. Was there ever one America except in our imaginations? As bad as I thought things were, they are clearly much worse. Trump is hellbent on destroying everything if he doesn’t get his way and probably even if he does. But it was the voters, it was America that gave him the launch codes.
Yes, we are in uncharted, turbulent waters and a hurricane is heading our way.
Didn't want to go there in my comment, but you're right that wedge issues, hatred, bigotry, grievance, retribution and vengeance anointed Donald Trump. It doesn't make me feel very good about many of my fellow Americans.
Same here. Same here.
A recent interview with Ursula von der Leyen, EU President, is very encouraging re the willingness and ability of the Europeans to stabilise things.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/2025-04/ursula-von-der-leyen-eu-usa-donald-trump-english
Great article.
Paul, you say our country’s ability to service our debt is at risk. Trump has a habit of stiffing his creditors. Was to stop him from saying we need to stop paying foreigners and claim our debt is zero?
The floated idea of converting existing debt to interest free 100 year bonds is exactly that. Nothing will stop him, least of all that it will break the US (and maybe the world) economy, it's just that it will not accomplish any goal.
Resonable. If you're interested, you might want to have a look at my note on the parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/sero-sapiunt-fhriges?r=58uzcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Very good explanation of the UK experience, even for an econ-novice like me. My fear is a much worse outcome for the U.S. given our president’s need for bigly actions
You’re right about the worse outcome. The US presidency is a set term of four years. It’s much easier to get rid of a lousy prime minister than a terrible president.
These “big”, “powerful”, “rich”, law firms that so shamelessly capitulated to Trump, like many Americans who buried their heads in the sand, proved that they have no dignity. When you kowtow to a fraudster you prove that you accept their immorality.
What a shame!
I have been arguing this exact analysis for so long it's almost embarrassing to think it bears new reporting.
Collective leadership will always defeat authoritarianism because the give and take needed to develop policy ensures acceptance, which in turn ensures durability.
Think Stalingrad. That was the doomsday of Nazi Germany. After Stalingrad Germany was on the defensive. Hitler's generals argued for a breakout and orderly retreat which would have preserved German capability, not to mention its sense of inevitability. But Hitler insisted on staying and fighting. The result was an unmitigated disaster. Morale crumbled as the German soldier finally understood the folly of its leadership.
Now, what may not be as well appreciated is the superiority of the Democratic Party vs the GOP. The former is a coalition, requiring collective leadership, while the latter has become a servant to the autocrat.
People often decrde the seeming chaos of the Democrats, but their diversity is a strength. Think of what they have accomplished: durable programs like Social Security, Medicare, the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and so many more. By contrast what has the GOP achieved except for increasingly unpopular tax cuts? They are a one-trick pony.
Diversity and the atomization of power is/was the genius of the Constitution, and the men who created it. It produced the stability of policy e.g., the Rule of Law, that allowed us to flourish.
This really requires a whole book, there are so many strands to this story. But my index finger is getting tired.
Musical coda: John Denver, Hey it's Good to be Back Home Again
I fully grasp the unrestrained anger the MAGA community displays towards those they feel are undeserving of their success…built on the backs of MAGAites. It is those backs that are left behind, broken, and unable to taste even brief success. We cannot afford housing (it’s been turned into asset management for the wealthy) or with “aesthetically pleasing” yards that will be subject to fines by the “blight ordinances” because our backs are tired, and 24 hours/day only allows 3 shifts of work to pay the landlord/mortgage company and taxes, groceries, personal vehicles (because mass transit is unappealing to this country), childcare…if I can afford the medical/insurance industry’s bills…because it’s all built on industry. And it goes on. And the orange dictator has the MAGA crowd believing if they can taste success like he does, they’ll give him anything.
The sad irony is that is probably the only president who could actually deliver universal healthcare or a higher minimum wage just by clicking his fingers. But that obviously will never happen. And in some respects maybe that's a good thing because he could cement his dictatorship by actually giving the MAGA crowd something which would genuinely benefit them. Hitler alleviate unemployment to consolidate his power with popular support.
Interesting point, and one I certainly missed.
And to destroy the ACA, I'd surprised if he doesn't. (I think the entire world knows that Trump almost certainly ignored the Obama administration's Pandemic Plan because he was never going to risk looking less capable or intelligent than a Black person, especially Obama.)
Of course, such a plan would do away with coverage for preexisting conditions, and would contain huge gifts for Big Pharma, etc.
And Trump would tell America it was the "greatest healthcare on Earth", and they'd believe every word, even after the dying started. (I live in the Deep South, and I've yet to hear of anyone expressing regret for having sacrificing loved ones to the Trump/Covid Sacrificial Pyre.)
Jennifer,
I'm beginning to believe that Trump's anger is substantially based on PEOPLE GETTING FREE STUFF. (Or to Trump, that's the interpretation, ignoring the BILLIONS in "free stuff" Trump has received, and is STILL receiving, and the genuine need of millions of struggling, hard working Americans.)
FREE green energy? - NO WAY!! If it doesn't come out of the ground, then NO ONE is GETTING RICH!
FREE heat and power (assistance) for the poorest Americans, those in greatest need? - NOPE! ("Let's see if they're too lazy to SHIVER in the winter cold!")
FREE health care for the poorest and neediest - Well, maybe. (Since the goal of healthcare in America is the enrichment of the RICHEST FEW (the 1% mostly), possible something OTHER THAN THE ACA is considered acceptable, as long as no one actually gets well.
"FREE" income in old age - "SORRY! Your social security has ALL been promised to "Leon" in exchange for his help burning America to the ground. (Even though it came from your earnings, out of your paycheck.) What, you thought Leon was willing to give up BILLION$ in earnings, and the destruction of his "reputation" for nothing?! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
I do regret that, in this context, things begin make a little "sense"...
I agree with all you say. The seething anger of the MAGA crowd seems to have no end.
I was trying two days ago to melt Trump's face onto exactly that picture of LXIV. They are soul brothers.
It's been done:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/donald-trump-ltat-cest-moi.html
Thank you! Much better than I could ever have done!!!
Considering Trump has personally filed for 6 (?) bankruptcies, this is what he knows. The Doge cuts to IRS will likely reduce our ‘income’ by 500 billion over original projections-this year alone and, combined with our current high debt, the House wanting to extend the tax cuts, reduced tax revenue from the tariff effects, it’s a perfect storm of unsustainability. I think it would be the predicate for the administration to claim they ‘had to’ ‘do something’ about the debt and they’d ’restructure’ it, I’ve heard, changing the terms of bonds to 100 years? How is this not going to destroy us financially?
The parallels between the current situation and the turmoil in the Gilt market in October 2022 are remarkable. Market confidence might evaporate very rapidly.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marketszoon/p/sero-sapiunt-fhriges?r=58uzcq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false