They're creating chaos like sociopaths. Ruining retirements or basic human decency. The idea of removal is of paramount importance. Discussions of impeachment has to be in every chat of our leaders.
Basic human decency is a thing of the past. Trump is showing us by his example that only money and power matter now. He has trashed every ounce of dignity there was left in the US presidency.
Hoping that Professor Krugman knows of Oren Cass and can provide insights.
Just listened to a podcast where an economist from American Compass, Oren Cass, was interviewed. Seems that Oren Cass was the strategist or at least the inspiration behind the worldwide tariffs and seemingly also the weird motivation to derive tariff rates based on trade deficits of only manufacturing goods.
From my layperson interpretation, during the interview it seemed that Oren Cass laid out legitimate concerns about truly bad and also some just undesirable behavior by China -- which a majority likely would agree is bad and needs to be halted. Then after some well meaning discussion by Mr. Cass about working with allies to counter and disengage from China, he subsequently seemed to leapfrog to his overarching strategy of imposing tariffs worldwide to reorder all of global trade. He posited a floor of a 10% tariff worldwide with additional tariffs on other countries and at least a 60% tariff on all imports from China.
Wondering whether Professor Krugman knows anything about this Oren Cass and the theories he promotes underpinning the strategy to reorder global trade and economies and financially ruin a bunch of us, our small businesses, and other innocents around the world in the meantime.
He did a podcast with Cass a month or two ago. I believe it was Kara Swisher's. The problem with Cass is he doesn't live in reality. He constantly repeats nonsense, claiming that US productivity is lagging the rest of the world (in fact, US productivity growth has been the envy of the developed world for... going on two decade), that we need to re-shore manufacturing by eliminating trade deficits (in fact, manufacturing employment has been largely wiped out by automation, not trade; if trade went to zero, economists estimate you could get manufacturing from 10% of US GDP to... maybe 13-14%. At its peak, it was around 30%. And even then, those jobs were high-paying because they were unionized. Now they're not.
Short answer is that Cass has no grasp of the data, no understanding of the economics of trade, and his model of the economy is entirely incoherent. Other than that, he's great.
Thank you. Yesterday was the first I had heard of Cass and his fantasyland policy recommendations.
May I add to your critique? From my admittedly biased biotech perspective, it appears that the current policy is to abandon high value economic drivers like biomedical R&D, ag biotech, etc. and instead reshore the low-value, automated manufacturing that you describe.
Pretty much. Cass is a manufacturing fetishist. Even if you ignore the fact that the numbers don't come close to adding up in terms of employment numbers, he has a fixation on manufacturing as a magic key to a middle class lifestyle. It's entirely wrong in every way, but two major ones in particular. First, he imagines that manufacturing has magic powers that made it relatively well-paying in the middle of the last century when the reality is that it paid fairly well because it was unionized, not because it was inherently excellent work.
Second, he romanticizes this allegedly wonderful middle class lifestyle. Reality is, in the middle of the last century, well under 10% of the adult population had a bachelor's degree. In 1980, it was 16%. Today, it's around 40%. A third of households lacked complete indoor plumbing in 1955. Half lacked a TV. A quarter lacked a car. College was far more affordable (due to state support)... but no one went to college. Even the homeownership rate is higher (66%, compared to 63% in 1965). It has been higher in the middle, 2000s (as high as 69%), but it was never higher than it is today before 1996. The one area where life really was much better for a middle class family in manufacturing's heyday is housing in wealthy coastal cities. But that's pretty much exclusively due to local zoning policy.
I think they'd be less dangerous. They won't have the cultish loyalty of the base; nor would they have the Congress and Senate Republicans terrified of being primaried, etc. Nor would the Supreme Court have fealty to Johnson, I would suspect.
Wrong. The cultish base needs a cult leader, and will be enamored with anyone they perceive as powerful, who will parade Hispanics in leg irons, separate children from parents, and destroy the education department, which they consider nothing but a trans-enabling pedophile ring. I guess you haven't gotten the memo yet, but Vance has much more money than Trump, and can threaten to "primary" anyone who disagrees. There is also a huge conglomerate of billionaires and corporations, many with names you don't even know, who will continue to support the Republicans so they can get more tax cuts. They could give a rat's behind who is in charge -- they will shower them with money, since there are no limits on campaign donations anymore. What you are totally deluded about, and do not understand at all, is that Trump IS A SYMPTOM OF U.S. DELCINE, NOT THE CAUSE. If Trump dropped dead tomorrow, the system would vomit up another proto-fascist, and then another.
Your cute metaphor is not applicable. Trump is just a figurehead, a dupe, a tool of humongous corporate interests, proto-fascists, billionaires, the extreme-right, and Christian fascists. Get rid of him, and there are many more to take his place. Most of them will not be a stupid or ineffectual or have early stage dementia like Trump. They will be much more lethal.
No, in fact they would be decidedly more effective in shoving their 2025 authoritarian, facist goals on this nation. They will stay focused on goals and have been taught by Trump just how to twist arms and threaten the politicians, courts, media, universities and states. No, the remaining Republicans are all complicit, well funded, and will easily win over Trump voters by appealing to the same fears and hatred’s. Loss of Trump will not stop anything.
Many others in line to take their place. Please don't fool yourself.
Will the Democrats pull it together, win mid-term elections, and put up a strong viable candidate in 3 years? Not impossible, but right now they are asleep at the wheel for the most part.
Justice doesn't seem to prevail with Trump and his administration. These people break and bend the law to suit their purposes. They get away with it, while the rest of us are expected to follow the rules and tolerate their criminality. And we're supposed to think it's all making American great again. My level of disgust is immeasurable.
The Senate passed a bill to claw back the Tariff power on Canadian tariffs. Speaker Johnson won't let a bill to move forward in the House. Nothing else happening on Tariff authority. This is no longer just on Trump, the entire GOP in Congress owns this for not acting.
They used to be, but over the years Congress ceded that responsibility to the Executive Branch. Will be interesting to see if one part of the fallout from the Spraytan Sultan’s trade war is Congress taking back that responsibility…
My understanding is that CF #47 declared a national emergency giving him the power to impose tariffs. I would like clarification and the documentation of this national emergency. We, the people who are being TAXED, deserve to know.
in some rule-of-law countries, an executive declaration of an emergency is subject to some degree of judicial review. Not in President I've-never-been-accountable-for-anything-in-my-life Trumps' world, apparently.
Mike Johnson and a lot of repugs in the House are creatures of the Heritage/Project 2025 (Opus Dei) men. Men who are determined to wreck the US Government, and then (they insanely believe) rebuild it the way they think will be best: a religious-fascist social system.
Actually, Elon Musk wants to create a Network State of technocrat ideologues/libertarians who will run each network group as a technical business with a CEO making all the decisions in conjunction with other network groups, and the remaining people are the (midieval) serfs obeying the CEO and a few tech advisors. Check out Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Yarval (??) for details.
That is why he spent so much to buy Twitter and is doing his best to strip people from government, the more competent they are the better. Make government seem incompetent so people won’t mind building a new one that they won’t understand until it has complete power.
It looks to me like the various groups are cooperating, now, in the destruction process. When that is completed, I suppose their current alliances will be abandoned, and there will be a power struggle for "who gets to rule the world now!" I doubt any of these particular nitwits will win. Whoever wins, Mother Nature is standing in the wings, eager to play her role in world domination.
Absolutely! Climate change is marching on and, at least right now, the country with the biggest need to mitigate for it is China, and while Xi knows and understands the problem, without U.S. leadership not that much of significance will get done and the Earth will likely blow through the 3C-degree warming point and could even exceed 5C, which will make human life really unpleasant. The “unpolished silver lining” is if Trump causes a World-Wide Depression which brings economic growth to a halt and into a deep decline, so the CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases actually slow. A really poor “silver lining,” but we all need to see something other than total complete disaster, just a major one?
Let's please call it what it is - Global Warming. The term "Climate Change" is a term invented by the Right's spin doctors, to make Global Warming seem more palatable to people who don't really understand it (most people). Then, of course, progressives just swallowed and and parroted that term, and so did the corporate media (big surprise). As usual, the majority of politicians on the left have no backbone and normalize whatever the right says instead of pushing back.
I have listened to Harry's podcasts before and find them very informative. Krugman is my favorite economist who explains wonky stuff so we mere mortals can understand.
How many in the Trump administration do you suppose bought a bunch of stock just before Trump announced he was caving on tarriffs? The opportunities here for some type of insider trading seem truly astounding
What about the viability of small and medium sized businesses (and not publicly traded on the stock markets)? — if they are facing steep tariffs on imports that they can’t afford, let alone pass on to customers, aren’t we facing a potentially massive bankruptcy class of vulnerable business? Why isn’t this discussed more?
I like board games and I'm seeing this discussion among board game makers. Almost all games are physically printed & assembled in China. The game makers are saying that a 104% tariff is going to put them out of business. And because the tariff is across-the-board, any investor who wants to try to create a boardgame-printing-assembling company in the US will face massive tariffs in buying the machinery (also made in China) to do so.
Excellent article, and what an appropriate name for a game (“Gloomhaven”).
I imagine something like “Trade War” might be in someone’s development pipeline (if they can afford to produce it these days;-). Thanks for sharing. 👍👊
I agree and in addition to higher input costs, anti-American sentiments will further harm American businesses of all sizes and types from sellers of products to service providers; virtually no U.S. business will be spared. My own business' future is in peril because 85% of my business is international advising on R&D. Potential new clients in countries where I have done business for years -- Canada, France, UK, other EU countries, Australia, NZ, etc. don't want to send a dime to an entity in the U.S. so I'm struggling to get potential clients to respond to new project bids.
Needless to say, this trade war appears to have been planned with about 2 days of forethought by a bunch of billionaires who could care less about anyone other than themselves. "Take your medicine" or "Let them eat cake" attitude abounds.
Excellent point, the spillover into the services sector (and the major export of the US economy). This might be the marketing moment to conscientiously cultivate your client references and commercial expertise to counter negative public sentiment during turbulent times.
It's insane that Trump said he had no plans to back off on the tariffs and then announced while trading was in session that he would be pausing most tariffs. Is he profiting off of these market swings which he is generating?
Thank you. I have no questions. Just, thank you. For helping myself and others around me breathe, become more educated about these topics, and helping us formulate questions for our own local government officials based less on fear and more on seeking discourse around how to help our community and our businesses navigate these topsy turvy times.
This was an exceptionally clear discussion. I was particularly struck by Paul's observation that even if Trump were to suddenly drop his tariff agenda, it is too late to go back to normal. He has revealed himself to be an unstable billiard ball, spinning and careening around the table, ungoverned by the laws of physics. Who can be sure what's going to happen next? There are many excellent reasons to loathe Trump, but it seems as though many of them are secondary to his sheer unpredictability.
Thank you Paul! I especially appreciated your comment highlighting how representative governments have been more trustworthy than autocracies. Trump's chaotic, uninformed leadership and the fact that he has never honored a promise in his life should have informed the public to avoid his leadership like the plague.
I agree - that was a very good point in the discussion. Of course, things didn't end well for Louis XVI. The practical end in the here and now in the US would be an impeachment, but at this point that's likely still a fantasy. As to Trump being succeeded by Vance (another ugh), if Trump were removed via impeachment (versus, say, choking on a piece of steak), that *might* give Vance some pause going forward; that plus the fact that Vance doesn't have the appeal (another ugh) of the Cult of Trump.
The uncertainty will also be bad for scientific research. Most research projects require a minimum of three years of funding, and, generally, a second three years obtained by a successful grant renewal. Now we see grant funding being cut off in the midst of a funding period. This is especially horrible for research like biology or medicine that requires enough data for meaningful statistical analysis. If such a grant is cut off midway, the incomplete data is useless.
Sounds as though you are a fellow scientist. How do we communicate to the non-research portion of the populace that already research has been harmed in a significant way. I've seen it in my own professional R&D circles. One-in-the-world research labs shuttered; best and brightest young government scientists given pink slips; even years-long programs of collecting fundamental data for subsequent studies axed; and so on. I don't know about your field, but in my professional circles we are beginning to see the brain drain. During the past week I've seen evidence of European countries recruiting heavily from our world-class pool of biomedical scientists. I feel that our non-research fellow citizens need to be aware that as this brain drain continues, the next revolutionary cancer treatments will be owned by European companies, the next world saving mRNA vaccine will be owned by a UK or Chinese pharma company, the next treatments for infertility will have been developed by France's INRA and owned by a French Pharma, the next revolution like CRISPR will be discovered in Europe or Canada or Australia, for example, and not in the US.
Up to now, other countries have worked to emulate our model for scientific research and subsequent commercialization ...the model which is now being dismantled. In addition, from my vantage point is seems that the regime is shutting down more financially rewarding drivers of US businesses and the US economy like biomedical research, ag biotech, etc. while on the other hand trying to force the reshoring of manufacturing of socks and t-shirts. (And what advisors believed THIS to be a good trade?)
Maybe you or others here have thoughts on how to communicate the risks of shuttering scientific research to the wider population?
I think the biggest crisis is that our educational system has obviously failed to convey the excitement of discovery that comes from scientific investigations. Children are naturally curious. Our educational systems seem to destroy that.
Serious question here, does the educational system destroy curiosity or is it that our culture so reveres business leaders? In many businesses and even more recently some universities, MBA types are put in management roles over scientists and researchers. People now vote for business leaders to run government.
The “90 day pause” just announced is really just to provide a window for his fat-cat base (thinking guys like Ackman) to get their ducks in a row to maximize profits when the destruction resumes.
He has done this twice so far. He'll keep doing it till he is stopped. He and his billionaire advisors & friends will get richer and richer. We 99% will get poorer and more hopeless.
The tariffs on most nations are off again. OK - time for a betting pool on when they will be on again. Is the SEC tracking the stock trading activity of this incredibly corrupt White House?
the SEC has been neutered. Don't expect ANY investigations of people enriching themselves from Trump's whipsaws (except maybe by Congress if the Democrats can engineer them on their own. Jeffries seems to want to try.)
They're creating chaos like sociopaths. Ruining retirements or basic human decency. The idea of removal is of paramount importance. Discussions of impeachment has to be in every chat of our leaders.
Basic human decency is a thing of the past. Trump is showing us by his example that only money and power matter now. He has trashed every ounce of dignity there was left in the US presidency.
Hoping that Professor Krugman knows of Oren Cass and can provide insights.
Just listened to a podcast where an economist from American Compass, Oren Cass, was interviewed. Seems that Oren Cass was the strategist or at least the inspiration behind the worldwide tariffs and seemingly also the weird motivation to derive tariff rates based on trade deficits of only manufacturing goods.
From my layperson interpretation, during the interview it seemed that Oren Cass laid out legitimate concerns about truly bad and also some just undesirable behavior by China -- which a majority likely would agree is bad and needs to be halted. Then after some well meaning discussion by Mr. Cass about working with allies to counter and disengage from China, he subsequently seemed to leapfrog to his overarching strategy of imposing tariffs worldwide to reorder all of global trade. He posited a floor of a 10% tariff worldwide with additional tariffs on other countries and at least a 60% tariff on all imports from China.
Wondering whether Professor Krugman knows anything about this Oren Cass and the theories he promotes underpinning the strategy to reorder global trade and economies and financially ruin a bunch of us, our small businesses, and other innocents around the world in the meantime.
He did a podcast with Cass a month or two ago. I believe it was Kara Swisher's. The problem with Cass is he doesn't live in reality. He constantly repeats nonsense, claiming that US productivity is lagging the rest of the world (in fact, US productivity growth has been the envy of the developed world for... going on two decade), that we need to re-shore manufacturing by eliminating trade deficits (in fact, manufacturing employment has been largely wiped out by automation, not trade; if trade went to zero, economists estimate you could get manufacturing from 10% of US GDP to... maybe 13-14%. At its peak, it was around 30%. And even then, those jobs were high-paying because they were unionized. Now they're not.
Short answer is that Cass has no grasp of the data, no understanding of the economics of trade, and his model of the economy is entirely incoherent. Other than that, he's great.
Thank you. Yesterday was the first I had heard of Cass and his fantasyland policy recommendations.
May I add to your critique? From my admittedly biased biotech perspective, it appears that the current policy is to abandon high value economic drivers like biomedical R&D, ag biotech, etc. and instead reshore the low-value, automated manufacturing that you describe.
Pretty much. Cass is a manufacturing fetishist. Even if you ignore the fact that the numbers don't come close to adding up in terms of employment numbers, he has a fixation on manufacturing as a magic key to a middle class lifestyle. It's entirely wrong in every way, but two major ones in particular. First, he imagines that manufacturing has magic powers that made it relatively well-paying in the middle of the last century when the reality is that it paid fairly well because it was unionized, not because it was inherently excellent work.
Second, he romanticizes this allegedly wonderful middle class lifestyle. Reality is, in the middle of the last century, well under 10% of the adult population had a bachelor's degree. In 1980, it was 16%. Today, it's around 40%. A third of households lacked complete indoor plumbing in 1955. Half lacked a TV. A quarter lacked a car. College was far more affordable (due to state support)... but no one went to college. Even the homeownership rate is higher (66%, compared to 63% in 1965). It has been higher in the middle, 2000s (as high as 69%), but it was never higher than it is today before 1996. The one area where life really was much better for a middle class family in manufacturing's heyday is housing in wealthy coastal cities. But that's pretty much exclusively due to local zoning policy.
I still say please & TY & respect my elders though I am over 70. Good manners don’t die with DEMs. 💙
Agreed!
That's why it's imperative that we Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
April 19 is the next nationwide rally, be there or be square!
//
Don't let up folks, it's working:
Boycott TE卐LA! Boycott Swastikar!
Short TE卐LA! Short Swastikar!
Boycott 卐tarlink!
Boycott 卐/Twitter!
Curb your DOGE!
https://generalstrikeus.com/strikecard
You think Vance or Mike Johnson would be less horrific?
No, absolutely not.
I think they'd be less dangerous. They won't have the cultish loyalty of the base; nor would they have the Congress and Senate Republicans terrified of being primaried, etc. Nor would the Supreme Court have fealty to Johnson, I would suspect.
Wrong. The cultish base needs a cult leader, and will be enamored with anyone they perceive as powerful, who will parade Hispanics in leg irons, separate children from parents, and destroy the education department, which they consider nothing but a trans-enabling pedophile ring. I guess you haven't gotten the memo yet, but Vance has much more money than Trump, and can threaten to "primary" anyone who disagrees. There is also a huge conglomerate of billionaires and corporations, many with names you don't even know, who will continue to support the Republicans so they can get more tax cuts. They could give a rat's behind who is in charge -- they will shower them with money, since there are no limits on campaign donations anymore. What you are totally deluded about, and do not understand at all, is that Trump IS A SYMPTOM OF U.S. DELCINE, NOT THE CAUSE. If Trump dropped dead tomorrow, the system would vomit up another proto-fascist, and then another.
Cut the head of the snake and the body withers
Your cute metaphor is not applicable. Trump is just a figurehead, a dupe, a tool of humongous corporate interests, proto-fascists, billionaires, the extreme-right, and Christian fascists. Get rid of him, and there are many more to take his place. Most of them will not be a stupid or ineffectual or have early stage dementia like Trump. They will be much more lethal.
No, in fact they would be decidedly more effective in shoving their 2025 authoritarian, facist goals on this nation. They will stay focused on goals and have been taught by Trump just how to twist arms and threaten the politicians, courts, media, universities and states. No, the remaining Republicans are all complicit, well funded, and will easily win over Trump voters by appealing to the same fears and hatred’s. Loss of Trump will not stop anything.
Vance: TERRIBLE. Johnson perhaps slightly better than Trump. But you'll need a magnifying glass to see the difference
You are correct, the tRUMP Trilogy has to go together.
Many others in line to take their place. Please don't fool yourself.
Will the Democrats pull it together, win mid-term elections, and put up a strong viable candidate in 3 years? Not impossible, but right now they are asleep at the wheel for the most part.
Good question.
same, unprincipled ilk....
Right, because the first 2 times he was impeached worked so well.
Justice doesn't seem to prevail with Trump and his administration. These people break and bend the law to suit their purposes. They get away with it, while the rest of us are expected to follow the rules and tolerate their criminality. And we're supposed to think it's all making American great again. My level of disgust is immeasurable.
I thought tariffs were the responsibility of Congress. Is that right? Why isn't congress stepping up to stop this nonsense?
The Senate passed a bill to claw back the Tariff power on Canadian tariffs. Speaker Johnson won't let a bill to move forward in the House. Nothing else happening on Tariff authority. This is no longer just on Trump, the entire GOP in Congress owns this for not acting.
They used to be, but over the years Congress ceded that responsibility to the Executive Branch. Will be interesting to see if one part of the fallout from the Spraytan Sultan’s trade war is Congress taking back that responsibility…
My understanding is that CF #47 declared a national emergency giving him the power to impose tariffs. I would like clarification and the documentation of this national emergency. We, the people who are being TAXED, deserve to know.
in some rule-of-law countries, an executive declaration of an emergency is subject to some degree of judicial review. Not in President I've-never-been-accountable-for-anything-in-my-life Trumps' world, apparently.
Right now Congress isn't a worth shit.
… because Congress is choosing to believe it is paralyzed.
Mike Johnson and a lot of repugs in the House are creatures of the Heritage/Project 2025 (Opus Dei) men. Men who are determined to wreck the US Government, and then (they insanely believe) rebuild it the way they think will be best: a religious-fascist social system.
Actually, Elon Musk wants to create a Network State of technocrat ideologues/libertarians who will run each network group as a technical business with a CEO making all the decisions in conjunction with other network groups, and the remaining people are the (midieval) serfs obeying the CEO and a few tech advisors. Check out Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Yarval (??) for details.
That is why he spent so much to buy Twitter and is doing his best to strip people from government, the more competent they are the better. Make government seem incompetent so people won’t mind building a new one that they won’t understand until it has complete power.
It looks to me like the various groups are cooperating, now, in the destruction process. When that is completed, I suppose their current alliances will be abandoned, and there will be a power struggle for "who gets to rule the world now!" I doubt any of these particular nitwits will win. Whoever wins, Mother Nature is standing in the wings, eager to play her role in world domination.
Absolutely! Climate change is marching on and, at least right now, the country with the biggest need to mitigate for it is China, and while Xi knows and understands the problem, without U.S. leadership not that much of significance will get done and the Earth will likely blow through the 3C-degree warming point and could even exceed 5C, which will make human life really unpleasant. The “unpolished silver lining” is if Trump causes a World-Wide Depression which brings economic growth to a halt and into a deep decline, so the CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases actually slow. A really poor “silver lining,” but we all need to see something other than total complete disaster, just a major one?
Let's please call it what it is - Global Warming. The term "Climate Change" is a term invented by the Right's spin doctors, to make Global Warming seem more palatable to people who don't really understand it (most people). Then, of course, progressives just swallowed and and parroted that term, and so did the corporate media (big surprise). As usual, the majority of politicians on the left have no backbone and normalize whatever the right says instead of pushing back.
Because it's controlled by Republicans.
Congress should push back:
https://indivisible.org/tariffs?akid=117213.4201189.D0oSfO&rd=1&t=8&utm_medium=_20250409&utm_source=email
Congress will push back when bats fly out my ass
Because Congress is in the hands of the GOP.
creeping up on 300 years ago... not many echoes left today, I fear.
I have listened to Harry's podcasts before and find them very informative. Krugman is my favorite economist who explains wonky stuff so we mere mortals can understand.
How many in the Trump administration do you suppose bought a bunch of stock just before Trump announced he was caving on tarriffs? The opportunities here for some type of insider trading seem truly astounding
What about the viability of small and medium sized businesses (and not publicly traded on the stock markets)? — if they are facing steep tariffs on imports that they can’t afford, let alone pass on to customers, aren’t we facing a potentially massive bankruptcy class of vulnerable business? Why isn’t this discussed more?
I like board games and I'm seeing this discussion among board game makers. Almost all games are physically printed & assembled in China. The game makers are saying that a 104% tariff is going to put them out of business. And because the tariff is across-the-board, any investor who wants to try to create a boardgame-printing-assembling company in the US will face massive tariffs in buying the machinery (also made in China) to do so.
TrumPox and his band of Criminal Clowns consider small to medium sized businesses as fungible as as they consider us to be.
Ah, here's the post I was thinking about. Just a few minute read, but has links to a lot of news stories about this.
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/cephalofair/gloomhaven/updates/20854?ref=bk-noti-project-update-20854
Excellent article, and what an appropriate name for a game (“Gloomhaven”).
I imagine something like “Trade War” might be in someone’s development pipeline (if they can afford to produce it these days;-). Thanks for sharing. 👍👊
I agree and in addition to higher input costs, anti-American sentiments will further harm American businesses of all sizes and types from sellers of products to service providers; virtually no U.S. business will be spared. My own business' future is in peril because 85% of my business is international advising on R&D. Potential new clients in countries where I have done business for years -- Canada, France, UK, other EU countries, Australia, NZ, etc. don't want to send a dime to an entity in the U.S. so I'm struggling to get potential clients to respond to new project bids.
Needless to say, this trade war appears to have been planned with about 2 days of forethought by a bunch of billionaires who could care less about anyone other than themselves. "Take your medicine" or "Let them eat cake" attitude abounds.
Excellent point, the spillover into the services sector (and the major export of the US economy). This might be the marketing moment to conscientiously cultivate your client references and commercial expertise to counter negative public sentiment during turbulent times.
Thank you.
Timely and on topic
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/trump-tariffs-small-businesses?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Anyone else think someone near the Whitehouse is trading on these market convulsions?
Of course it is. Just two days ago, the White House said the 90-day suspension was fake news. It is totally Market Manipulation.
It's insane that Trump said he had no plans to back off on the tariffs and then announced while trading was in session that he would be pausing most tariffs. Is he profiting off of these market swings which he is generating?
Thank you. I have no questions. Just, thank you. For helping myself and others around me breathe, become more educated about these topics, and helping us formulate questions for our own local government officials based less on fear and more on seeking discourse around how to help our community and our businesses navigate these topsy turvy times.
This was an exceptionally clear discussion. I was particularly struck by Paul's observation that even if Trump were to suddenly drop his tariff agenda, it is too late to go back to normal. He has revealed himself to be an unstable billiard ball, spinning and careening around the table, ungoverned by the laws of physics. Who can be sure what's going to happen next? There are many excellent reasons to loathe Trump, but it seems as though many of them are secondary to his sheer unpredictability.
Thank you Paul! I especially appreciated your comment highlighting how representative governments have been more trustworthy than autocracies. Trump's chaotic, uninformed leadership and the fact that he has never honored a promise in his life should have informed the public to avoid his leadership like the plague.
I agree - that was a very good point in the discussion. Of course, things didn't end well for Louis XVI. The practical end in the here and now in the US would be an impeachment, but at this point that's likely still a fantasy. As to Trump being succeeded by Vance (another ugh), if Trump were removed via impeachment (versus, say, choking on a piece of steak), that *might* give Vance some pause going forward; that plus the fact that Vance doesn't have the appeal (another ugh) of the Cult of Trump.
If the Republicans would do what they are charged with, they could stop trump and Doge.
The uncertainty will also be bad for scientific research. Most research projects require a minimum of three years of funding, and, generally, a second three years obtained by a successful grant renewal. Now we see grant funding being cut off in the midst of a funding period. This is especially horrible for research like biology or medicine that requires enough data for meaningful statistical analysis. If such a grant is cut off midway, the incomplete data is useless.
Sounds as though you are a fellow scientist. How do we communicate to the non-research portion of the populace that already research has been harmed in a significant way. I've seen it in my own professional R&D circles. One-in-the-world research labs shuttered; best and brightest young government scientists given pink slips; even years-long programs of collecting fundamental data for subsequent studies axed; and so on. I don't know about your field, but in my professional circles we are beginning to see the brain drain. During the past week I've seen evidence of European countries recruiting heavily from our world-class pool of biomedical scientists. I feel that our non-research fellow citizens need to be aware that as this brain drain continues, the next revolutionary cancer treatments will be owned by European companies, the next world saving mRNA vaccine will be owned by a UK or Chinese pharma company, the next treatments for infertility will have been developed by France's INRA and owned by a French Pharma, the next revolution like CRISPR will be discovered in Europe or Canada or Australia, for example, and not in the US.
Up to now, other countries have worked to emulate our model for scientific research and subsequent commercialization ...the model which is now being dismantled. In addition, from my vantage point is seems that the regime is shutting down more financially rewarding drivers of US businesses and the US economy like biomedical research, ag biotech, etc. while on the other hand trying to force the reshoring of manufacturing of socks and t-shirts. (And what advisors believed THIS to be a good trade?)
Maybe you or others here have thoughts on how to communicate the risks of shuttering scientific research to the wider population?
I think the biggest crisis is that our educational system has obviously failed to convey the excitement of discovery that comes from scientific investigations. Children are naturally curious. Our educational systems seem to destroy that.
Serious question here, does the educational system destroy curiosity or is it that our culture so reveres business leaders? In many businesses and even more recently some universities, MBA types are put in management roles over scientists and researchers. People now vote for business leaders to run government.
The “90 day pause” just announced is really just to provide a window for his fat-cat base (thinking guys like Ackman) to get their ducks in a row to maximize profits when the destruction resumes.
He has done this twice so far. He'll keep doing it till he is stopped. He and his billionaire advisors & friends will get richer and richer. We 99% will get poorer and more hopeless.
Credibility will not be restored if tariffs are rescinded soon
So the uncertainty is certain.
https://instantrimshot.com/
The tariffs on most nations are off again. OK - time for a betting pool on when they will be on again. Is the SEC tracking the stock trading activity of this incredibly corrupt White House?
Would they have doge ok to do it?
the SEC has been neutered. Don't expect ANY investigations of people enriching themselves from Trump's whipsaws (except maybe by Congress if the Democrats can engineer them on their own. Jeffries seems to want to try.)