lf you haven't already seen it, you must watch Dictator for a Day, A MAGA Musical for the Masses! 83 hilarious minutes of musical mockery of the Very Stable Genius.
Yes! Read all the parts of this series that explains the 2024 election, and be part of asking for an audit, before we have to trust those same people for the 2026 mid-terms.
Dr. Krugman, is there anything interesting to be said about the collection aspects of the Trump tariffs?
For instance, does that impose a burden on the ports or government to assess and collect those tariffs? And what happens to the revenue from the tariffs? Do they go into the same bucket as tax income, or do they become a governmental slush fund?
Good question. I know the ports are involved in tax collection as a port of entry ... and some chaos ensued when T changed the overall tariff rate for China early in this second reign ... because the prior rate included a de minimus level of smaller priced items excluded from tax. Suddenly all product was subject to tax and the ports had no infrastructure in place to manage the sudden change.
Flow of tariffs collected to its ultimate line item, unknown.
As Dr. Krugman points out frequently, crypto does not seem to have any legitimate value except as a financial instrument, and to reap the benefits of those instruments, sooner or later, they will need to be converted into a form you can use to actually buy things, e.g., cash.
thus the U.S. "Strategic reserve" for which the U.S. government buys Bitcoin from its holders in exchange for actual real Treasury-issued dollars. There are a few exceedingly large holders of Bitcoin who will profit from this "reserve" - though what is held in reserve may have no value by this time next year, or the year after...
“Financial Instrument?” Don’t know where you are getting this Crypto Troll idea from.
Speculative Investment, Not a Financial Instrument: Krugman repeatedly refers to crypto as a vehicle for speculation rather than a legitimate financial instrument.
There must be infrastructure because there were a few tariffs before Trump. For example, Canadian softwood lumber was excluded from NAFTA at the request of US timber companies and has had tariff for ages.
The arsonist sets the house on fire. As the crowd gathers he runs into the house and brings out the baby. The baby's quite dead but the arsonist is a hero.
Most shallow men are more interested in youth & beauty, so that's why they trade in women like used cars. A quote by deceased Saddam Hussein to his young captors before his execution: Make sure to pick a mate not too smart, but not too dumb, according to an article in Esquire years ago, which interviewed these young US military men.
I applaud Professor Krugman because he keeps telling the truth day after day when it seems to all intents and purposes that most Americans either don't know or don't care what is going on. Professor Krugman and Jerome Powell still hang on to reality after the Supreme Court, Congress, Columbia University, and so forth have bended the knee.
I don't want to keep beating the dead horse, but what American voters did in November 2024 was to elect a man who knows little about economics and who mostly thinks of economics and society as it was in the gilded age. Donald's actual views on society and race fits the views of the "know nothings" and "nativists" of the 1880's. Donald and much of MAGA are the nostalgia buffs.
Most of what Donald does can be easily explained by his personal likes and dislikes. Donald has always disliked people with dark skins, and he has always disliked dark-skinned immigrants. That to a large extent explains the mass deportation. Of course, mass deportation fits in with the views of Donald's MAGA base. Many MAGAs knew that they hated President Obama when they first saw him on television. They did not know diddly about his policies, but everyone could see that he is Black. When they found out that he was intelligent, well-mannered, well-spoken, and a devoted family man -- well they really hated him then.
Americas great strengths are education, science, research, a society that mostly goes by the rule of law, a place that values people regardless of race, background, and so forth. But Donald and MAGA are trying to undermine and destroy America's strengths. America should support global free trade because America has and can out compete and outperform other countries.
Donald wants to stop Harvard and other Universities letting foreign students come and study. But in the past, some of the smartest students in the world came to Harvard, MIT, and so forth to study and many of them stayed here to help build up America.
How much damage will be done before this nightmare is over? The problem with nostalgia is that we don't live in the past. We live today and will live in the future.
“…either don't know or don't care what is going on…”
Or they can’t figure out how to resist effectively. If the regime chooses to ignore public opinion, protests, constituent feedback, and economic performance*, there aren’t many levers left to push back.
*strikes and boycotts are effective only if a regime cares about the economy. This one is happily screwing up the economy on its own.
"America can out compete and outperform other countries" is the only statement that I believe has been proven incorrect by reading Empire of Cotton. In it, French and English cotton mills switched to Egyptian and Indian cotton during the Civil War, as France did not wish a repeat of bankruptcy accelerated by supporting the US during its revolutionary war from Great Britain. Today, as over a century ago, there is a global glut of everything from steel to autos, we read. The average consumer will choose price because there are not enough luxury consumers and to attract the volume consumer market, one of the three must be sacrificed: quality, cost, or service. The US is at the same point of evolution as other empires before it (Great Britain, Netherlands, Spain) failed due to over-financialization of the economy, I also read recently in Wealth & Democracy by Kevin Phillips.
I pray that you remain safe and fit. I have followed you for quite a long time. I still vividly remember one of your debates with George Wills of then ABC News. I find your approach to explaining economics cum social issues very refreshing.
Wills and Will are as day and night. A reformed (as it were) Catholic and a very learned man, he has written on Christianity and politics. After his conversion from being a fan of William F Buckley, he wrote "Confessions of a Conservative". Later, he supported Barak Obama for election, but then found him a "terrible disappointment". He's not producing much now, being 94 years old. I've read several of his books and round them valuable.
Now, I have realized my initial mistake. I meant George F Will, not George Wills. I always found George Will's writing interesting. Although, I cannot remember ever agreeing with him on anything, I was always anxious to read his Washington Post columns (I now avoid reading the Washington Post). I followed Dr. Krugman and have always found him uniquely gifted. Unlike Dr. Will, I cannot remember anything on which I have ever disagreed with Dr. Krugman. That might be because, in most cases, I read Dr. Krugman's column to learn, while I have my own strong opinions on politics and social issues, areas that appear to be the main focus of Dr. George F Will. Thanks for helping me understand the confusion caused by my initial message.
In The Art of the Deal the first page reads below. It is amusing to read in light of what it foreshadows.
“I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write
wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
“I play it very loose. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.
“It never stops, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. And if it can’t be fun, what’s the point? “
Not one. His ghost writer wrote the whole thing. Of course, he did have to translate Trumpkopf's incoherent babble to pull it off. And edit it judiciously.
I've always thought Leonardo was a con artist -- Was paid for the Mona Lisa but kept the money and took the painting with him to France. Was paid for a fresco in Florence, never finished it. Took money from a monastery to paint a church altarpiece, never finished it. Was court artist for the Duke of Milan, getting annual payments, plus money for a bronze statue of the Sforza family founder, yeah, never finished it. Leonardo was lucky he was a genius.
That's just the thing: Leonardo was a genuine genius. The Orange Scourge is a "genius" only in his own mind. Okay, and in the minds of his most idiotic cultists.
It's easy to portray yourself as a genius if your fan base collectively has the IQ of a nematode.
I've dealt with stupid people in management during my career at the Smithsonian and now at my neighborhood HOA. They think they are geniuses who do excellent work at low costs. Their work is actually very poor; they cut corners and walk away, then someone else has to spend more to repair their blunders. Donnie is one of them -- all lying talk, shoddy results.
You need to look at who ordered those items and what happened to them. In Italy at that time, there was considerable chaos. One year they actually had two Papal elections; the first one died after a few months in office. Michelangelo left most of his work unfinished for these reasons. A new Pope would come in and tell him "Stop working on that and do this instead."
My friend, who is a professor of Renaissance art at Hopkins and has written books on Leonardo, professes what I wrote. Certainly, Pope Julius II did put pressure on Michelangelo and the leaders of Florence to stop Michelangelo's work on the Battle of Cascina to go to Rome for the rebuilding of St. Peter's, which the leaders of Florence AGREED to, but Michelangelo's career is not Leonardo's.
Reminder: Trump did not actually write this book. It was written by a ghost writer. I am not saying Trump had no input - just that there is a question in my mind about how much he "contributed" to the thing. The media (please not Fox) should interview the ghost writer - they know who he is because he was ID during Trump's 1st Term. Hoping the guy is still alive, and he isn't sued by Trump if he answers questions in a way Trump doesn't like....
He's already expressed deep regrets for taking the assignment. He needed the money, and couldn't have predicted this outcome, so it's sort of understandable.
Professor Krugman: your analysis has left me wondering how americans will be able to afford these "deals"? is poverty and homelessness next? i already know MAGA will be hurt the worst, but this leaves me wondering what purchases will they prioritize? will they purchase food instead of housing? will they purchase bullets to feed their vast collection of guns before they purchase food to feed their children?
It will be like the wall that Mexico was going to pay for; when reporters asked him what happened to that promise, he replied with some sub-juvenile sophistry 'proving' that they actually DID pay.
tRump is truly the imbecile-in-Chief. He has no clue how anything in this world works - nothing! He couldn't get lunch if he didn't have his domestic slaves to do for him. And here he is pulling trade policy from deep in his large ass. We and the Economy are so very screwed.
Trump has been extremely talented in making bad deals. His business history is a tribute to this talent. The other part is that it always others who lose more than he does. Wake up America his art of the deal means that you are now the suckers.
Jesus, with every passing day of this idiot in charge it just gets worse. Now here is the real stupid part, because of Trump it will be cheaper for Toyota, Honda, etc to import cars than to build them here with the given Trump Taxes. I really believe this idiot thinks that these countries pay the tariffs which we all know is B-S. At first I though he was just stringing along his fans but I'm beginning to think given the language of this trade agreement that he actually believes what he says which I guess should not surprise anyone. This is why Russia and the Saudis string him along, they get what they want and we are stupid enough to put that ignorant P0S into power and everyone needs to understand, that idiot now has complete power. Democracy is gone and until he is gone, it will not be back and given what the Reich is attempting to do across the states, I'm not even sure we will see another election.
Thanks, Paul, for the sober analysis. I'm a retired trade finance and international agricultural commodities banker who worked (only edited 2 paragraphs) on the first NAFTA deal. That delicate negotiation took a considerable amount of time, with numerous meetings with the Canadians and Mexicans. held to discuss how the agreement would impact each sector of the economy and business society.
To the Japanese, this "tariff deal" is nothing more than a "framework" for trade, and clearly, it was not negotiated seriously or with deliberation because we got screwed on this "deal." The Japanese are deliberate in their negotiation style, but they know Trump and have successfully dealt with him before. Quick story: In the 80s, the Japanese came to America to invest in corporate real estate and proceeded to purchase prime real estate and tall buildings in New York, Chicago, LA, Seattle, SF, and many more places. Trump was also active in those markets in the 80s, and became a "co-managing partner" with 2 Japanese parties in a JV (joint venture) to buy NYC properties. Trump lost his voting status in the JV by doing "Trumpy" things (he hasn't changed.). Many years later, as we conducted "due diligence" on a possible debt refinance loan for Trump's Atlantic City bank loans, we discovered that Trump had lost money on every real estate deal that he touched in the 80s, except for the JV. And he only made money on that deal because the Japanese JV partners made him a silent partner and cut him out of active management. We ended our due diligence and advanced the Trump Organization to our "Do Not Ever Bank" list, but happily worked with the Japanese on some Seattle deals.
Trump got hired as a wrecking ball, no need to check his references, though the dynamic between him and his handlers has made him way more effective at it than I expected. We're barely beginning to feel the pain his stupidity will bring with it but it's coming. We better keep an eye on the movement that got us here because it will survive Trump and he's looking bad.
That movement, the pathological hatred of government and the false belief in the magic of free markets, has been around for a while and that's the thing that has won. It's the old Koch 'libertarian' scam now tinged with 'disaster capitalism' and 'creative destruction' in a way that aligns with the end-times desires of evangelical Christians so it's very, very scary shit ...
Another idiotic day in the crazy world of donny 2 dolls.
RESIST in every way possible.
Don has lots of Barbies.
And none of them like him.
and that includes his own daughter.
Laughter is the New Resistance (TM)
lf you haven't already seen it, you must watch Dictator for a Day, A MAGA Musical for the Masses! 83 hilarious minutes of musical mockery of the Very Stable Genius.
Rent it here: Dictatorforadayshow.com
dotard donny 2 dolls, or dotard dreckmeister
Yes! Read all the parts of this series that explains the 2024 election, and be part of asking for an audit, before we have to trust those same people for the 2026 mid-terms.
https://thiswillhold.substack.com/p/she-won-they-didnt-just-change-the
I don't quite see how this theory aligns with the exit polling
I didn't ever see any exit polls, but the main point is that there are anomalies in the data, which need explaining before the next election.
Biden of course.
Dr. Krugman, is there anything interesting to be said about the collection aspects of the Trump tariffs?
For instance, does that impose a burden on the ports or government to assess and collect those tariffs? And what happens to the revenue from the tariffs? Do they go into the same bucket as tax income, or do they become a governmental slush fund?
Good question. I know the ports are involved in tax collection as a port of entry ... and some chaos ensued when T changed the overall tariff rate for China early in this second reign ... because the prior rate included a de minimus level of smaller priced items excluded from tax. Suddenly all product was subject to tax and the ports had no infrastructure in place to manage the sudden change.
Flow of tariffs collected to its ultimate line item, unknown.
I doubt the funds could transfer directly to Trump's personal finances, but I wouldn't put it past him to try...
His real Godzilla Grift will be in turning the money from nothing that is Crypto into the same currency you and I have toiled for over a lifetime.
As Dr. Krugman points out frequently, crypto does not seem to have any legitimate value except as a financial instrument, and to reap the benefits of those instruments, sooner or later, they will need to be converted into a form you can use to actually buy things, e.g., cash.
thus the U.S. "Strategic reserve" for which the U.S. government buys Bitcoin from its holders in exchange for actual real Treasury-issued dollars. There are a few exceedingly large holders of Bitcoin who will profit from this "reserve" - though what is held in reserve may have no value by this time next year, or the year after...
“Financial Instrument?” Don’t know where you are getting this Crypto Troll idea from.
Speculative Investment, Not a Financial Instrument: Krugman repeatedly refers to crypto as a vehicle for speculation rather than a legitimate financial instrument.
Excuse me. That was what I meant. Can you differentiate the two terms for me, please?
I'm sure he'll find a way to launder it.
At the rate things are going, he may not feel the need to bother.
That would make it easier to convict.
I was going to say the same thing. It wouldn't surprise me if there's a "vig" going into Trump's pocket though.
Look for major purchases of Trump cryptocurrency: https://www.slickcharts.com/currency/TRUMP
I would bet that there is a correlation there with "deals" or postponement of tariffs.
I suspect Trump profits from the side deals with companies and countries able to bribe. He also profits from insider trading.
He doesn't have personal finances ... his bills all get paid by Super PAC funds ... and his business schemes. Think George Soros on steroids.
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/tariff-tracker/
Going to the "tRump library fund"? After, of course, tRump's vig is deducted.
Very good question. Is there infrastructure and accountability? Is there directed flow of these funds? What cut goes to the don?
There must be infrastructure because there were a few tariffs before Trump. For example, Canadian softwood lumber was excluded from NAFTA at the request of US timber companies and has had tariff for ages.
the arsonist guy with the blow torch just set fire to his own house
and he can't call the fire department because he also defunded the fire department.
a really smart arsonist.
The arsonist sets the house on fire. As the crowd gathers he runs into the house and brings out the baby. The baby's quite dead but the arsonist is a hero.
It may be stupid, but we are a stupid electorate … I mean just look who was elected?!?!
Let’s just say that Trump does not think things through to their logical conclusion. Witness his dismantling of our government. Chaos and destruction!
Trump has never thought anything “through” - including his wives. He divorced Ivana who actually had brains and then married two bimbos.
Melania has brains enough to have Trump fund her life while avoiding him.
and to get her parents into the US on special visas.
Also apparently a strong stomach and high tolerance for noxious odors...
Most shallow men are more interested in youth & beauty, so that's why they trade in women like used cars. A quote by deceased Saddam Hussein to his young captors before his execution: Make sure to pick a mate not too smart, but not too dumb, according to an article in Esquire years ago, which interviewed these young US military men.
Ah, but that >was< the logical conclusion. Wreak havoc, pilfer the spoils.
I applaud Professor Krugman because he keeps telling the truth day after day when it seems to all intents and purposes that most Americans either don't know or don't care what is going on. Professor Krugman and Jerome Powell still hang on to reality after the Supreme Court, Congress, Columbia University, and so forth have bended the knee.
I don't want to keep beating the dead horse, but what American voters did in November 2024 was to elect a man who knows little about economics and who mostly thinks of economics and society as it was in the gilded age. Donald's actual views on society and race fits the views of the "know nothings" and "nativists" of the 1880's. Donald and much of MAGA are the nostalgia buffs.
Most of what Donald does can be easily explained by his personal likes and dislikes. Donald has always disliked people with dark skins, and he has always disliked dark-skinned immigrants. That to a large extent explains the mass deportation. Of course, mass deportation fits in with the views of Donald's MAGA base. Many MAGAs knew that they hated President Obama when they first saw him on television. They did not know diddly about his policies, but everyone could see that he is Black. When they found out that he was intelligent, well-mannered, well-spoken, and a devoted family man -- well they really hated him then.
Americas great strengths are education, science, research, a society that mostly goes by the rule of law, a place that values people regardless of race, background, and so forth. But Donald and MAGA are trying to undermine and destroy America's strengths. America should support global free trade because America has and can out compete and outperform other countries.
Donald wants to stop Harvard and other Universities letting foreign students come and study. But in the past, some of the smartest students in the world came to Harvard, MIT, and so forth to study and many of them stayed here to help build up America.
How much damage will be done before this nightmare is over? The problem with nostalgia is that we don't live in the past. We live today and will live in the future.
“…either don't know or don't care what is going on…”
Or they can’t figure out how to resist effectively. If the regime chooses to ignore public opinion, protests, constituent feedback, and economic performance*, there aren’t many levers left to push back.
*strikes and boycotts are effective only if a regime cares about the economy. This one is happily screwing up the economy on its own.
"America can out compete and outperform other countries" is the only statement that I believe has been proven incorrect by reading Empire of Cotton. In it, French and English cotton mills switched to Egyptian and Indian cotton during the Civil War, as France did not wish a repeat of bankruptcy accelerated by supporting the US during its revolutionary war from Great Britain. Today, as over a century ago, there is a global glut of everything from steel to autos, we read. The average consumer will choose price because there are not enough luxury consumers and to attract the volume consumer market, one of the three must be sacrificed: quality, cost, or service. The US is at the same point of evolution as other empires before it (Great Britain, Netherlands, Spain) failed due to over-financialization of the economy, I also read recently in Wealth & Democracy by Kevin Phillips.
I pray that you remain safe and fit. I have followed you for quite a long time. I still vividly remember one of your debates with George Wills of then ABC News. I find your approach to explaining economics cum social issues very refreshing.
Yes, but please don't confuse George F Will and Garry Wills.
I had never heard of Garry Wills.
Wills and Will are as day and night. A reformed (as it were) Catholic and a very learned man, he has written on Christianity and politics. After his conversion from being a fan of William F Buckley, he wrote "Confessions of a Conservative". Later, he supported Barak Obama for election, but then found him a "terrible disappointment". He's not producing much now, being 94 years old. I've read several of his books and round them valuable.
Now, I have realized my initial mistake. I meant George F Will, not George Wills. I always found George Will's writing interesting. Although, I cannot remember ever agreeing with him on anything, I was always anxious to read his Washington Post columns (I now avoid reading the Washington Post). I followed Dr. Krugman and have always found him uniquely gifted. Unlike Dr. Will, I cannot remember anything on which I have ever disagreed with Dr. Krugman. That might be because, in most cases, I read Dr. Krugman's column to learn, while I have my own strong opinions on politics and social issues, areas that appear to be the main focus of Dr. George F Will. Thanks for helping me understand the confusion caused by my initial message.
In The Art of the Deal the first page reads below. It is amusing to read in light of what it foreshadows.
“I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write
wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
“I play it very loose. You can’t be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you’ve got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops.
“It never stops, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. And if it can’t be fun, what’s the point? “
I believe the book was ghost written by someone who has since regretted his involvement with Trump.
I wonder which of those words, if any, Trump actually wrote?
Not one. His ghost writer wrote the whole thing. Of course, he did have to translate Trumpkopf's incoherent babble to pull it off. And edit it judiciously.
Hard to write word salad, the page end up green and a bit oily.
An artist second only to Leonardo da Vinci...
I've always thought Leonardo was a con artist -- Was paid for the Mona Lisa but kept the money and took the painting with him to France. Was paid for a fresco in Florence, never finished it. Took money from a monastery to paint a church altarpiece, never finished it. Was court artist for the Duke of Milan, getting annual payments, plus money for a bronze statue of the Sforza family founder, yeah, never finished it. Leonardo was lucky he was a genius.
That's just the thing: Leonardo was a genuine genius. The Orange Scourge is a "genius" only in his own mind. Okay, and in the minds of his most idiotic cultists.
It's easy to portray yourself as a genius if your fan base collectively has the IQ of a nematode.
I've dealt with stupid people in management during my career at the Smithsonian and now at my neighborhood HOA. They think they are geniuses who do excellent work at low costs. Their work is actually very poor; they cut corners and walk away, then someone else has to spend more to repair their blunders. Donnie is one of them -- all lying talk, shoddy results.
They all rose to their level of incompetence.
Has anyone done a study of those who rise *above* their level of incompetence? It seems a promising endeavor, especially now.
You need to look at who ordered those items and what happened to them. In Italy at that time, there was considerable chaos. One year they actually had two Papal elections; the first one died after a few months in office. Michelangelo left most of his work unfinished for these reasons. A new Pope would come in and tell him "Stop working on that and do this instead."
My friend, who is a professor of Renaissance art at Hopkins and has written books on Leonardo, professes what I wrote. Certainly, Pope Julius II did put pressure on Michelangelo and the leaders of Florence to stop Michelangelo's work on the Battle of Cascina to go to Rome for the rebuilding of St. Peter's, which the leaders of Florence AGREED to, but Michelangelo's career is not Leonardo's.
Reminder: Trump did not actually write this book. It was written by a ghost writer. I am not saying Trump had no input - just that there is a question in my mind about how much he "contributed" to the thing. The media (please not Fox) should interview the ghost writer - they know who he is because he was ID during Trump's 1st Term. Hoping the guy is still alive, and he isn't sued by Trump if he answers questions in a way Trump doesn't like....
He's already expressed deep regrets for taking the assignment. He needed the money, and couldn't have predicted this outcome, so it's sort of understandable.
ditto the producer of The Apprentice, without which millions of people would not have thought that Trump was a successful businessmans.
The media actually did interview him - I think in 2016.
Interesting. Having a supreme leader only focused on the present does not seem like a wise thing for a countries future.
Professor Krugman: your analysis has left me wondering how americans will be able to afford these "deals"? is poverty and homelessness next? i already know MAGA will be hurt the worst, but this leaves me wondering what purchases will they prioritize? will they purchase food instead of housing? will they purchase bullets to feed their vast collection of guns before they purchase food to feed their children?
They’ll prioritize Trump memorabilia above all else. Their death rate during the worst of Covid showed they don’t even value their own lives.
“I’ll die before I’ll take a vaccine!”
And some of them did.
Yes.
Like the Foxconn deal from his first administration, the $550billion investment is probably written in smoke.
It will be like the wall that Mexico was going to pay for; when reporters asked him what happened to that promise, he replied with some sub-juvenile sophistry 'proving' that they actually DID pay.
And mirrors.
What can I say? Trump’s next book should be called The Art of the Steal. Everything is about his gain and our loss, including tariffs.
I'm kinda partial to Letters From Leavenworth. If he can find a fellow inmate to ghost-write them.
Better find a publisher in the UK.
tRump is truly the imbecile-in-Chief. He has no clue how anything in this world works - nothing! He couldn't get lunch if he didn't have his domestic slaves to do for him. And here he is pulling trade policy from deep in his large ass. We and the Economy are so very screwed.
Just like the girls that Epstein introduced Trumpkopf to.
Trump has been extremely talented in making bad deals. His business history is a tribute to this talent. The other part is that it always others who lose more than he does. Wake up America his art of the deal means that you are now the suckers.
Jesus, with every passing day of this idiot in charge it just gets worse. Now here is the real stupid part, because of Trump it will be cheaper for Toyota, Honda, etc to import cars than to build them here with the given Trump Taxes. I really believe this idiot thinks that these countries pay the tariffs which we all know is B-S. At first I though he was just stringing along his fans but I'm beginning to think given the language of this trade agreement that he actually believes what he says which I guess should not surprise anyone. This is why Russia and the Saudis string him along, they get what they want and we are stupid enough to put that ignorant P0S into power and everyone needs to understand, that idiot now has complete power. Democracy is gone and until he is gone, it will not be back and given what the Reich is attempting to do across the states, I'm not even sure we will see another election.
Thanks, Paul, for the sober analysis. I'm a retired trade finance and international agricultural commodities banker who worked (only edited 2 paragraphs) on the first NAFTA deal. That delicate negotiation took a considerable amount of time, with numerous meetings with the Canadians and Mexicans. held to discuss how the agreement would impact each sector of the economy and business society.
To the Japanese, this "tariff deal" is nothing more than a "framework" for trade, and clearly, it was not negotiated seriously or with deliberation because we got screwed on this "deal." The Japanese are deliberate in their negotiation style, but they know Trump and have successfully dealt with him before. Quick story: In the 80s, the Japanese came to America to invest in corporate real estate and proceeded to purchase prime real estate and tall buildings in New York, Chicago, LA, Seattle, SF, and many more places. Trump was also active in those markets in the 80s, and became a "co-managing partner" with 2 Japanese parties in a JV (joint venture) to buy NYC properties. Trump lost his voting status in the JV by doing "Trumpy" things (he hasn't changed.). Many years later, as we conducted "due diligence" on a possible debt refinance loan for Trump's Atlantic City bank loans, we discovered that Trump had lost money on every real estate deal that he touched in the 80s, except for the JV. And he only made money on that deal because the Japanese JV partners made him a silent partner and cut him out of active management. We ended our due diligence and advanced the Trump Organization to our "Do Not Ever Bank" list, but happily worked with the Japanese on some Seattle deals.
💯 👆 And that tells you ALL you SHOULD ever need to know about tRUmp's business "acumen".
Trump got hired as a wrecking ball, no need to check his references, though the dynamic between him and his handlers has made him way more effective at it than I expected. We're barely beginning to feel the pain his stupidity will bring with it but it's coming. We better keep an eye on the movement that got us here because it will survive Trump and he's looking bad.
That movement, the pathological hatred of government and the false belief in the magic of free markets, has been around for a while and that's the thing that has won. It's the old Koch 'libertarian' scam now tinged with 'disaster capitalism' and 'creative destruction' in a way that aligns with the end-times desires of evangelical Christians so it's very, very scary shit ...
https://harpers.org/archive/2008/08/the-wrecking-crew/
https://www.salon.com/2002/07/29/left_behind/
You get it!
I wish others (particularly Dems in Congress) could understand as clearly.
You nailed it, my friend.