*Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
Let's work on the acronym a bit - *Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
By the time DJT's done crashing the economy and surrendering to China/Russia, y'all will be looking back on Biden as some sort of golden boy. Biden may've been old; but despite inheriting Trump's Covid mess, he got IRA, CHIPS and Infrastructure done, and kept our economy the best in the world, bar none.
It would have been nice to have someone that knew what he was doing. Kamala would have been great. Anyone who can't see total incompetence with our present "leader"(?) must be blind...
Yes! Thank you for putting this is accurate terms. Opportunity Costs. So much wasted time and energy when we could have been doing so much good. So sad.
... and cheating his contreactors out if their honestly earned contractual compensation, bankrupting some in the process.
His son Eric stealing $2.5M from St. Jude Hospital charity, most likely on T's behalf. Resulting in a verdict that T cannot be part of any charitable org in NY State.
And the verdict for him to repay studentsof his fraudulent T University at tge tune if $25M.
The art of the deal? No.
The art of the steal? Yes!
He has always been a crook. And by no means that business genius tgat we were sold him to be.
*Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
Where are the adults? Where is the line in the sand? It is breathtakingly tragic that this is happening to our country and there seems to be no one in charge to step in and stop this train wreck from continuing.
It’s a lot of the mainstream media that are too prideful to admit they sanewashed Trump and put tech bros like Musk who got rich only because we taxpayers subsidized them on a pedestal.
They are still at it. Yesterday on Fox Musk literally said it was Medicaid and Medicare that is where the waste and fraud are and that they need to be eliminated. The NYT and WaPo aren’t even carrying the story on their main page. Joe Scarborough, on the other hand, is leading with the story and are vehemently ripping Musk’s lies about SS to shreds in a very long segment. Every time Musk advocates for cutting/eliminating social programs the media should be pointing out he is taking even more billions of our tax $$ for himself.
There is fraud and waste in Medicare: It’s called Medicare Advantage which are PRIVATE plans that are financed by our traditional Medicare and OVERCHARGE, thus blowing through the Medicare funds at an expedited pace. These plans were introduced by Bush Jr and now they are more than 70% of plans retirees sign up for. It’s a huge and very successful scam created by Republicans.
Fraud and waste in Medicare is a cottage industry as Florida Senator Rick Scott is aware. In fact he is an expert.
How do the fraudsters gouge the system for more billions? Simple, claim they are the forces of fraud cleanup so that they can shine the light away from themselves as they continue their theft.
I must correct myself. What May have started as a “cottage” industry has grown into big business with large office space, generally with no one in the office. Big fraud needs an address.
I’m a big believer in not putting any profession on a pedestal, only, possibly individuals. Isn’t it interesting how so much Medicare fraud relies upon corrupt doctors and other heath professionals?
No different than the legal profession which is rampant with snakes. Ironic that judges are still referred to as ‘your honor.’ Cosmic humor I guess.
Why did Medicare ever allow the private "advantage" plans to use(co-opt) the name "Medicare"? This is terribly confusing to people, as almost all the people I know who have the advantage plans think they are on traditional medicare. It certainly IS a scam, as you say.
Then, when those private advantage plans deny coverage the people who t think they have traditional medicare say:
"See the government can't do anything right!" It's so Orwellian. It's maddening. And, it's a brilliant ploy by private companies to gut medicare. I really fear for our country.
It doesn't gut Medicare. It simply allows big private insurers to "provide" you Medicare--just with less benefits and longer wait times; and higher bills on your behalf to the government.
And if you sign up for Medicare Advantage, once past the short intro period, you're stuck for LIFE.
Duh! How else could one get overworked, therefore uninformed, people to sign up?! It's like "Right to Work" (for less & less)...then, you find retired people formerly in unions or former execs being FORCED on it--UNLESS they opt out and PURCHASE their own supplemental plan that their former company will NOT fund......a mofo RACKET!!!!
If only someone other than Scarborough. I blame him as one of the people who helped Trump get elected the first time. Mika too. Must be guilt driving him - - no, wait, he’s a republican former congressman so no guilt. Hmm.
Theodora in her Royal Purple Robes appears to have been a very complicated person that historians appear to disagree about. However, all seem to agree she was very conniving with strong alliances with certain people of power to promote her will, like General Belisarius. Her will resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
Thus, I find it interesting that you watch and listen to both Faux News and Joe Scarborough, the Joe, who after the election flew quickly to Florida to plant his lips on Trump’s ass.
Joe Scarborough isn’t leading anything. He is apart of the hysteria that got us into this mess. He would oftentimes call Obama the most divisive president in USA history and a bunch of other dumb things in reference to Obama’s plans. He said Joe Biden was at the top of his game, crushed Trump, then started kissing Trump’s ass when he got elected.
Wanna bet that Musk completely ignores cutting most/all of the $60bn in Farm and Ag subsidies? $60bn that primarily goes to a tiny few corporate farm owners in Red farm states. Big Ag--like Big Oil/Gas/Coal and the Evangelicals--is a KEY GOP constituency.
The US society can say thank you to the voters and non-voters of the last election. They gave the power to a professional criminal liar and fraudster.
It reflects generally the lacking values, anger, and immorality of the US society as a whole.
The US citizens now got what they called for in their ignorance. Only the hopeless blind didn't know, for what kind of immoral incompetent man and his irresponsible MAGA/GOP cowards party they're voted for. And now this unscrupulous greedy bastard made the US to his private enterprise, together with the other greedy billionaires and useful idiot yes-sayers that are now on his side in the administration. Fulfilling all wishes from Donald Trump, Musk and Putin.
Congratulations US, you have destroyed your country. How ignorant must people be.
The only chance is that the real civil society now activates all citizens that still have values and integrity, to go on the streets every day and protest Trump/Musk/Maga/GOP/Putin.
It’s fair to blame some of it on brainwashed, uneducated and/or racist voters, but the election itself was manipulated so that people couldn’t vote or voting was made so difficult that only certain populations had access to the polls. Here in NC that game continues with “real ID”. There are long waits at the few places where this process can begin. Hourly wage earners simply can’t afford that much time off.
Please stop the rigged election talk. The Real ID was introduced in 2005 after 9/11. To blame the results on this is just a useless, lazy argument for those that didn’t vote. There has been plenty of time to switch to the Real ID. The issue is we have a lazy populace that doesn’t vote.
I have citizenship to a European country where you need an ID and a registered address to vote. With that you are on the voter roll and you will get the notification automatically. The Country (for now) is still considered a model democracy: Germany. (Formerly fascist and communist, before that monarchy.) Elections are called the same evening and vote count is completed the next day. On paper. Not some machines.
The real reason Trump/GOP are in power is FOX News and RW media. That will ceaselessly shill for Trump/GOP, no matter how badly they screw up, and where 85% of conservative voters get some/most/all of their alternative facts pretending to be news.
That Nov. '24 Ipsos poll found that of those 85%, a full 80% have completely drunk the cool aid, believing that we're already in a recession, that inflation is still as high as it was 2-3 years ago, that crime/unemployment are at all-time highs. And that's before you go into the really Gaga GOP nonsense, like that immigrants are eating people's dogs and cats. Thus, a full 68% of GOP voters live entirely in a fantasyland cut from whole cloth by our friends at FOX News.
People notice the bad. They noticed when gas went up after the invasion of Ukraine. They noticed grocery prices going up after COVID and beyond.
People don't notice when things improve. Gas prices have been back to normal for at least 2 years. The price of a lot of things are still higher, but incomes are higher too.
All true. But the reason people didn't notice when consumer inflation spiked massively a few years ago, and that it was hugely, bigly, big bigly worse in literally every OTHER country but ours, was all due to our friends at FOX News.
And you can bet that if Trump had won in '20, it would've been FOX News running unending segments on how much bigly big worse inflation was in every other country but ours. We would've been thanking our lucky stars that Biden...errr, Trump was keeping inflation so (relatively) low.
I've got the state DL that is not "real ID" (thank God to this right wing repub allowance) since I have a passport. You don't know HOW crooked LE can be unless you've lived in TX....however, I now live in another blue city in another red state and am white, so I've never had issues with voting like TX does to mainly minority Houston. She's right about that.
The election was rigged. (Smart Elections). Yet many did vote for this hatred. I regrettably had to shun some of my family until they apologize and admit they believed the lies for evil reasons. Yes, people with true integrity need to get involved.
The real pushback is just beginning. The protests are growing by the day as it really settles in for the low-information masses how awful it is. Way too few Americans pay attention or bother to vote, but this is not normal, and it's not sustainable. Republicans are afraid to face their own constituents, and Democrats who aren't cowed by the Trumpist bullying are finally going after it with rallies in red districts. The markets are tanking, Tesla is tanking, the feckless WaPo is hemorrhaging its best journalists, and our co-presidents are increasingly deranged. Bobby Brainworm is talking diet and cod liver oil while measles spreads and kills. The court cases are piling up, with none trending in favor of this reckless administration. They're abducting dissidents and bullying universities. Even ludicrously unqualified people like Duffy are complaining publicly about the chainsaw approach, now that he has actual responsibilities involving life and death.
Oh, and they have to pass another stopgap funding bill by the end of the week, even as they run around mindlessly praising Dear Leader.
As always, many thanks to Paul Krugman for calmly debunking their idiotic claims about government and the economy. It puts breathing room between us and the abyss. For now.
To me (from a somewhat safe spot in Europe) the tRump inauguration photo with all the tech mongrels (I mean moguls) in the back looks like the ballroom of the Titanic or the Overlook Hotel, doomed.
Not amateur. The GOP is poised to pass an even bigger tax cut for the rich this year, that will add $2.5 trillion in red ink to this year's budget. THAT's why Elon's so feverishly attempting to cut non-GOP government spending: to offset the bigly big tax cuts, 70% of which will flow to the richest 5%.
Jeffy & Elon will be able to buy more yachts, while the rest of us starve.
Sounds about right. I'm beginning to feel like the only chance is a civil war. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but I'm preparing myself mentally for it, just in case. I wasn't expecting to have great longevity to begin with, but this will significantly reduce my life expectancy.
Don't EVEN go there. A civil war in a country with the planet's largest nuclear and biological weapons stockpiles? Once President Musk is done spiking inflation through the roof and trashing the economy, if we can't utterly trounce them in the '26 midterms, then we're stupid morons who'll get the monarchy we deserve.
No adults this time around. The line in the sandbox is being continuously scraped over by the petulant kiddies in command who apparently don't like lines in their sandbox.
So true, but he's only interested in tricking a few of the more weak minded MAGAnuts out there. He needs cannon fodder for the upcoming civil war he wants to start.
Your assessment of King MAGA's austerity - which is little more of a continuation of the Reagan plan, as you pointed out - is spot on, especially that last part about him and his cronies laughing all the way to the bank.
It forces me to wonder how an actual opposition party would act in the face of a narcissistic madman destroying the government in front of our faces. I have to conclude it would be radically different from what the Democrats are doing... whatever that is. Can someone point out to me what it is they're doing? I've looked but I'm not seeing anything.
You, the voters chose to keep them out. Without a mandate to act on the voters’ behalf what exactly were you hoping a hobbled congress would do? I will point out that Bernie Sanders is out there speaking at rallies to thousands of people st a time and lots of Democratic Congress members are holding jam packed town halls. So get out there and find them & get involved.
With no position of power, what are the Democrats supposed to be doing? Making speeches or proposing legislation gets you nowhere if the «liberal» media refuses to cover it. I suppose someone could could self-immolate on the floor of the House and that might be up there for one news cycle. But then it’ll be back to how people need to have empathy for «Middle America» and how destroying everything that made America the strongest, richest, most envied country will ultimately pay off with the added benefit that you will be allowed to publicly hate and demean people for who they are.
Democrats are electoral failures, and they seem to wear that mantle proudly. They are more interested in acting like the adults in the room than actually putting hands on Republicans and fighting back against their lies and gaslighting. I am shocked at how weak they act toward the R's. It's to the point that it seems like they put their money on the opposition and they're taking the dive.
It was deliberate. I am sure tRump has had many counseling and advice sessions with Putin in the last 2 years. Putin walked him through the process of turning the US into a kleptocracy with a pass through Kakistocracy. The advice some of our polity could have used back in November is 'be careful what you vote for - you may get it.'
Actually, it’s Orban’s playbook that’s being copied. Bibi did the same thing and look what happened after he gutted his intelligence & defensive commands.
I'd say a lot longer than two years. Remember, King Krasnov was compromised by the KGB all the way back in the '70's. He was low hanging fruit for them.
when this is all over and we are picking up the pieces, remember and remind people that the GOP Congressional members are a bunch of worms who have no problem sitting in front of a camera to lie and steal if it means they get to keep their government jobs.
Trump, who was constantly rebuffed by the "adults in the room" in his first term made sure that there would be none present in his second term. His rosy economy from the first term was possible only because of the people he has banished from his second.
And this is why dictators have a problem accessing good information, and end up surrounded by a protective bubble of yes-men until reality comes knocking (see Putin and his "three day" war plan for Ukraine)
Republican senators and representatives have made Congress irrelevant although the Constitution places it front and center. It’s an astounding contrast to the English history the founders considered as they wrote the Constitution. Parliament vigorously defended its power against absolute monarchs on numerous occasions. Now Republicans reject the culture and history they claim to defend in favor of the very different eastern European experience.
The Republican machine purged itself of almost all decent members, i.e., the "adults" you speak of. We already know that Trump has no line in the sand. He'll grift for all he can get. The cryptocurrency scam is one example. The insistence that all fraud and waste are in Medicare and Medicaid is another. Sure, there is fraud and waste there, but firing inspectors general instead of bolstering investigative offices is not the way to go. Ditto in the IRS. We already know that such operations return much more money to the the treasury than they cost.
Those of us who subscribe to The Economist magazine remember its October 19, 2024 issue, with the cover "The Envy Of The World", referring to the US economy, and stating " The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust."
Trump & his "detox" minions are attempting to rewrite the Biden economy & shift the blame for the current chaos.
Yup...and Fox with scream it and main stream will tap dance softly so not to be sued ....NO freedom of the press = No truth. Britain still has strict fact checking on their press so they do not have to worry about is it true or not...they get the facts .... we are in a cesspool of lies and manipulation - that's a BIG one to turn around
That "The Envy Of The World" article was a disinformation campaign by The Globalist Cabal trying to meddle in US elections in order to destroy America. Don't listen to them, instead look at that bright shiny disrespect from Zelenskyy! /s
You’re anti-globalist cabal is just a pawn of Putin — the disrespect was clearly Trumphuk and boy toy JD being completely horrible in their tag teaming insults to Zelenskyy — who was invited to attend as a guest of the White House and then verbally mugged.
Will they succeed? They got America to believe there was no insurrection. Now they’re trying to get America to believe the Biden economy sucked. Will they succeed?
Trumpists are not making excuses, they are lying. It is just that simple. The Biden economy was the envy of the world in spite of years of Republican attacks and sabotage. New jobs were created every single month Biden was in office. Unemployment was at record lows. But Trump and the corporate media convinced the voters that inflation, inflation from Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic, was a crisis...even as Biden's team brought it under control. Trump and his thugs will drive the country into recession, if not depression, and he and his oligarch buddies will get rich off the ashes.
Yes, the 2024 presidential campaign was mostly conducted on made-up issues and lots and lots of propaganda and hype. MAGA hype about the "southern border out of control" "country overrun by immigrant murders and rapists," "terrible economy" "price of gas and eggs are sky high" and so forth. I agree, Biden and his team did a good job of handling inflation and the economic disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. I don't know about the mental activity of Biden but at least he could select good people for cabinet and other offices. And the selection of people is one of the main jobs of a President.
But the voters seem to love propaganda and hype and very few voters think for themselves.
A great question is how the Democrats cut through the propaganda and hype to get their message out. I think that their short coming in the past election was messaging. MAGA set the agenda and talking points (on mostly culture war issues) and kept at it.
Biden/Harris had a great economy and did some good things. But you have to tell the voters. You cannot depend on the voters to do any independent thinking or find facts for themselves. You have to tell them and tell them often.
Jon Stewart had Maria Ressa on his podcast…she made the point that the tech companies have been allowed to effectively rewire our brains ..move fast & break things & they broke democracy. We need TRUTH back, until the tech companies are regulated we will continue to see this loss of trust in our institutions. The issue isn’t so much democrats messaging to me, it’s that the republicans have been allowed to peddle straight disinformation & lies & they were enabled by tech. They’re getting what they asked for & also seeing their wealth vanish as the stock market crashes….
Deep bow to you for giving us non-economists ammo for our conversations with people who've imbibed the administration's Kool-Aid and Mr. Musk's I-don't-know-what: ketamine cocktail?
Thank you for bringing light and structure into the jungle of information. Unfortunately almost all TV media outlets do not look at this data in that way and repeat the same message over and over.
It's starting to look like 2001 when the go-go Clinton economy turned into a recession no one saw coming. The Europeans pulled their investments over lawless behavior: Bush stealing the presidency, Enron, WorldComMCI etc. This time perhaps the Asians will join them. In any case, Japan and China should start unloading their US debt. When the Nazis defaulted on foreign debt, they offered to repay in "blocked marks" that could only be used to buy German goods. Doesn't that sound like MAGA?
Will the Trump’s Base notice? They don’t notice their immediate spatiotemporal surroundings. Even though they believed their neighborhoods were safe they were convinced that the country outside was a crime-ridden hellscape. Even when things were, apart from the price of eggs, relatively good for them they believed the country was in recession. So I’d anticipate that if the country does go into recession they’ll buy Trump’s claim that it’s just a temporary speedbump, a temporal anomaly, on the way to the golden future. Regardless of spatiotemporally locally conditions they believe that the big picture would be wonderful government is dismantled and the country is run by big tough guys doing business. If people are dying of the measles that’s just a minor, local issue—they’d be dying more from vaccines. Kick out the ‘experts’, kick out the wimps and weak womincks, let the big tough guys govern with the sledgehammer and chainsaw and beat the crap out of anyone who objects—that will fix everything—eventually.
Hard to day. It was easy to imagine crime and the economy were horrible "somewhere else" in spite of one's own situation being fine. It will be harder to imagine that everything if fine when people find that their own situation is tanking. I have been listening to the BBC interviewing far spokesmen and they have very scathing things to say about Trump's tariffs.
The suspension of belief for them has shifted to, "this is temporary." This is unprecedented! Never has anyone tanked the US economy on purpose in the blind pursuit of an ideology. The Black guy keeps saying: race is their ace in the hole they used to drag us down this path. Trump shouted white grievance when he wasn't making false economic promises. Be sure that as things worsen he will holler some more about DEI...maybe we should rearrange the letters to DIE.....since we are now in economic suicide?
The Trump team is doomed to fail because their end goal is a "pure" economy where only Trumpists hold positions of power. That involves purging all POCs, people who identify somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, people who hold any political views left of the John Birch society, and most women of any political belief as well. The NSDAP was able to pull off "Gleichschaltung" in 1933 because they only had to purge maybe about 2% of the population (Jews were less than 1% of all Germans, Socialists weren't heavily represented in the upper ranks of the bureacracy or military). The Trumpists are trying to purge the majority of Americans from having any representation in government, media or the commanding heights of the economy. It's hard to see how that turns out well.
They already are turning on each other where do you think all those threats that Republican Congress people are afraid of are coming from? Not from anybody but their own.
J.D. Vance came to Europe and in key speeches lectured Europeans about freedom of speech. Essentially arguing that in Germany Nazis should not be restrained in their rantings and in the UK simply lying.
Musk does the same.
Yet in the US Khalil is facing being deported, AP news is being intimidated and Universities are being threatened by these same people.
…..and we have to keep writing the facts because we have been taught and believe they matter. Yet to so many people they just don’t. Oddly, disbelieving fact is usually for reasons enabling hatred and awful behaviour.
How do you get to a world where Professor Krugman’s clear, logical and fact based information is treated with more respect than rabid hate filled lies?
Arabs organized all last year to get Trump in office...now it's time to pay the Piper....I will be interested when 2026 comes...THEN they can show me they learned their lesson....for now? His @ss needs to go! This is what the Arab American community fought for so it is on them.
At face value, it all doesn't make sense. Bessent is not a fool. The only way to understand what their words actually mean is to study the playbook they're using. What is that playbook? A combination of the neofascist Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and the "Network State" that tech billionaires such as Peter Thiel (and his follower Vance) have been working on for years already. By "efficiency" neofascists don't mean "a government that increases health, education and prosperity levels for the people". By "toxic economy" they don't mean an economy that is "strong" in today's meaning of the word. By "efficiency" they refer to a very specific neofascist ideology, namely the form of neofascism that wants the government to be "run like a business".
If you want to see this ideology put into practice, study PROSPERA, a "Network State" in Honduras (www.prospera.com). The idea is fascist at its core, so like all forms of fascism, the power of the executive "bundles" ("fasces" in Latin means "bundle") the power of the legislative (Congress, the branch of government responsible for making laws and controlling the purse strings) and the power of the courts to interpret the law and enforce it... into its own power. As Vance tweeted recently, this means that from now on, Congress and the courts play a merely advisory role, which is non-binding, with the executive having the last word. Or as Steve Bannon explained in a recent WSJ interview: if you want the government to function like a private businesses, imagine the merger of two businesses. The deal itself is always negotiated by the CEOs. Then, you need corporate lawyers to put the agreement into legal fine print and work out the details. Congress, under the neofascist GOP, is reduced to the role of corporate lawyers, working NOT for "we the people" but for the executive branch of government.
THAT is, according to neofascists, the most "efficient" way of functioning, for any government.
Efficient for whom? - is then the next question.
As Prospera illustrates: efficient for the wealthiest. The idea is that democracy is bad for world peace and that fascism is better at it. Why? Because neofascism is an oligarchic system of government, in other words, a government by and for the wealthiest. Citizens are treated as "customers", so the more you can pay, the more services you get, knowing that in the end, it is always the company that decides what to give and what to take, so it can refuse you as a customer at any moment.
For the same reason, those who aren't part of the wealthiest are considered "NPC", a gamer term for "nonplaying character". In other words: these people are irrelevant to the extent that they don't make the wealthiest wealthier.
THIS is why they consider government programs that redistribute wealth to be "toxic". Their ideology, their concept of a "healthy state" is one in which all government services are entirely privatized. You cannot pay for them? Feel free to leave the country and move to a different place.
For more info about Network States (THE concept we should be discussing right now) see Gil Duran (a former Diane Feinstein advisor who studied Network States and continues to write about them on his Substack The Nerd Reich) or "Crack-up Capitalism" by Quinn Slobodian.
Finally, why do they need to plunge the economy into a recession and create so much chaos? Here, we need to remember that many of them studied Saul Alinsky. The idea is that without massive disruption and chaos, people will never be so desperate that they'll be willing to give up fight or that they'll actively WANT a dictatorship. So the more chaos, the better... . And as Hannah Arendt showed, fascist regimes usually stay in power by claiming to their voters that they are fighting against "the establishment". They can only do so in a credible way as long as there is an establishment to fight against, so something that continues to wreak havoc. In a fascist regime, it's that regime itself that creates the chaos, while its propaganda machine spins it as the result of the "elites" and deep state still active inside the government...
This is a clear expose on the underpinnings of the Trumphuk/Muskalini/Heritage cabal. It answers the question: what do “they” want? Well what “they” want clearly is to destroy the US economy in order to do a take over and remake the country as a docile autocracy benefiting an oligarchy linked to a narrow extreme minority ideology.
Yesterday I opened the NYT on my phone and the top headline was about the S&P. Then I opened the WP on my phone and the top headline was also about the stock market. Then I thought to myself, I wonder how Fox News is positioning what’s happening? So I opened up Fox News on my phone. And guess what? I scrolled and I scrolled, and I didn’t see a single article about the stock market. It is so important to remember that those who support Trump and read Fox News are not getting the same messaging about what is happening in this country. We may know that in theory, but it’s disturbing to open up their news platform and see it with your own two eyes.
'The whole “detox” thing is just a cover story for policy failure'
From putins perspective this is a huge policy success
Hmmmmm, I think you're onto something there...
And as we all KNOW, Trump is Putin's Puppet - specifically his POOP - Putin's Obese Orange Puppet
His sock puppet.
...actually his sock POOPpet.
*Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
sock Putin-pet?
Putin's lap dog. Putin must have a >really< big lap.
Yeah, that too.
Let's work on the acronym a bit - *Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
Obnoxious
Of one thing I am certain, Trumpism will be remembered as the mother of all national OPPORTUNITY COSTS.
Yeah, think what we could have done with four more years of Sleepy Joe.
By the time DJT's done crashing the economy and surrendering to China/Russia, y'all will be looking back on Biden as some sort of golden boy. Biden may've been old; but despite inheriting Trump's Covid mess, he got IRA, CHIPS and Infrastructure done, and kept our economy the best in the world, bar none.
It would have been nice to have someone that knew what he was doing. Kamala would have been great. Anyone who can't see total incompetence with our present "leader"(?) must be blind...
Still delusional eh, Lar? Even after the markets are pooping on your Prez’s intellect? The cult is deep.
Yes! Thank you for putting this is accurate terms. Opportunity Costs. So much wasted time and energy when we could have been doing so much good. So sad.
It's like his interview statement to FauxNews where he says he can't rule out a recession. His "economic genius" is not coming through very well.
Bankruptcies and mismanagement are his specialties.
... and cheating his contreactors out if their honestly earned contractual compensation, bankrupting some in the process.
His son Eric stealing $2.5M from St. Jude Hospital charity, most likely on T's behalf. Resulting in a verdict that T cannot be part of any charitable org in NY State.
And the verdict for him to repay studentsof his fraudulent T University at tge tune if $25M.
The art of the deal? No.
The art of the steal? Yes!
He has always been a crook. And by no means that business genius tgat we were sold him to be.
🎯
*Contest – name the “O”. The first “O” in the acronym POOP isn’t fixed while the other three letters are set – Putin’s ______ Orange Puppet. This first “O” could have lots of different meanings, such as – obese, outrageous, ostentatious, offensive, oppressive, outlandish, etc. Winner to be drawn from the reader’s favorite entry. I like obese. So many O’s to choose from! (Maybe this could catch on – after all, POOP loves to give his enemies derogatory nicknames).
Osculating (or oscillating) both apply.
You have actually named a real problem for the Orange Menace. Adam Kinzinger says that his diaper stinks...
Where are the adults? Where is the line in the sand? It is breathtakingly tragic that this is happening to our country and there seems to be no one in charge to step in and stop this train wreck from continuing.
This is what it looks like when the idiots take over. Americans are too prideful to admit they fucked up, so this nation is a kakistocracy now.
It’s a lot of the mainstream media that are too prideful to admit they sanewashed Trump and put tech bros like Musk who got rich only because we taxpayers subsidized them on a pedestal.
They are still at it. Yesterday on Fox Musk literally said it was Medicaid and Medicare that is where the waste and fraud are and that they need to be eliminated. The NYT and WaPo aren’t even carrying the story on their main page. Joe Scarborough, on the other hand, is leading with the story and are vehemently ripping Musk’s lies about SS to shreds in a very long segment. Every time Musk advocates for cutting/eliminating social programs the media should be pointing out he is taking even more billions of our tax $$ for himself.
There is fraud and waste in Medicare: It’s called Medicare Advantage which are PRIVATE plans that are financed by our traditional Medicare and OVERCHARGE, thus blowing through the Medicare funds at an expedited pace. These plans were introduced by Bush Jr and now they are more than 70% of plans retirees sign up for. It’s a huge and very successful scam created by Republicans.
Literally designed to be fraud so the wealthy can profit.
Fraud and waste in Medicare is a cottage industry as Florida Senator Rick Scott is aware. In fact he is an expert.
How do the fraudsters gouge the system for more billions? Simple, claim they are the forces of fraud cleanup so that they can shine the light away from themselves as they continue their theft.
I must correct myself. What May have started as a “cottage” industry has grown into big business with large office space, generally with no one in the office. Big fraud needs an address.
I’m a big believer in not putting any profession on a pedestal, only, possibly individuals. Isn’t it interesting how so much Medicare fraud relies upon corrupt doctors and other heath professionals?
No different than the legal profession which is rampant with snakes. Ironic that judges are still referred to as ‘your honor.’ Cosmic humor I guess.
Why did Medicare ever allow the private "advantage" plans to use(co-opt) the name "Medicare"? This is terribly confusing to people, as almost all the people I know who have the advantage plans think they are on traditional medicare. It certainly IS a scam, as you say.
Then, when those private advantage plans deny coverage the people who t think they have traditional medicare say:
"See the government can't do anything right!" It's so Orwellian. It's maddening. And, it's a brilliant ploy by private companies to gut medicare. I really fear for our country.
It doesn't gut Medicare. It simply allows big private insurers to "provide" you Medicare--just with less benefits and longer wait times; and higher bills on your behalf to the government.
And if you sign up for Medicare Advantage, once past the short intro period, you're stuck for LIFE.
Duh! How else could one get overworked, therefore uninformed, people to sign up?! It's like "Right to Work" (for less & less)...then, you find retired people formerly in unions or former execs being FORCED on it--UNLESS they opt out and PURCHASE their own supplemental plan that their former company will NOT fund......a mofo RACKET!!!!
Both Rick Scott and Matt Gaetz's dad Don Gaetz, made fortunes through scamming Medicare, Through HCA and nursing homes, respectively.
What'll you bet that Musk's supposed $700bn of Medicare waste doesn't touch a single Medicare Advantage insurance company?
Thank you for pointing that out!!
If only someone other than Scarborough. I blame him as one of the people who helped Trump get elected the first time. Mika too. Must be guilt driving him - - no, wait, he’s a republican former congressman so no guilt. Hmm.
He was the first to run down and kiss the sphincter.
Theodora in her Royal Purple Robes appears to have been a very complicated person that historians appear to disagree about. However, all seem to agree she was very conniving with strong alliances with certain people of power to promote her will, like General Belisarius. Her will resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
Thus, I find it interesting that you watch and listen to both Faux News and Joe Scarborough, the Joe, who after the election flew quickly to Florida to plant his lips on Trump’s ass.
Joe Scarborough isn’t leading anything. He is apart of the hysteria that got us into this mess. He would oftentimes call Obama the most divisive president in USA history and a bunch of other dumb things in reference to Obama’s plans. He said Joe Biden was at the top of his game, crushed Trump, then started kissing Trump’s ass when he got elected.
Wanna bet that Musk completely ignores cutting most/all of the $60bn in Farm and Ag subsidies? $60bn that primarily goes to a tiny few corporate farm owners in Red farm states. Big Ag--like Big Oil/Gas/Coal and the Evangelicals--is a KEY GOP constituency.
So, are you telling me I should start watching rump-kisser Joe again? That trip to Mara-Lego pretty much ended my watching MJ.
Literally taking fed contracts already awarded other companies
No, thieves are taking over, we are the idiots getting robbed.
Only the Senate Republicans can stop this hostile government takeover, but they are too weak and under Dump’s thumb to save us.
There are no adults because they were deliberately purged and / or excluded.
The US society can say thank you to the voters and non-voters of the last election. They gave the power to a professional criminal liar and fraudster.
It reflects generally the lacking values, anger, and immorality of the US society as a whole.
The US citizens now got what they called for in their ignorance. Only the hopeless blind didn't know, for what kind of immoral incompetent man and his irresponsible MAGA/GOP cowards party they're voted for. And now this unscrupulous greedy bastard made the US to his private enterprise, together with the other greedy billionaires and useful idiot yes-sayers that are now on his side in the administration. Fulfilling all wishes from Donald Trump, Musk and Putin.
Congratulations US, you have destroyed your country. How ignorant must people be.
The only chance is that the real civil society now activates all citizens that still have values and integrity, to go on the streets every day and protest Trump/Musk/Maga/GOP/Putin.
It’s fair to blame some of it on brainwashed, uneducated and/or racist voters, but the election itself was manipulated so that people couldn’t vote or voting was made so difficult that only certain populations had access to the polls. Here in NC that game continues with “real ID”. There are long waits at the few places where this process can begin. Hourly wage earners simply can’t afford that much time off.
Please stop the rigged election talk. The Real ID was introduced in 2005 after 9/11. To blame the results on this is just a useless, lazy argument for those that didn’t vote. There has been plenty of time to switch to the Real ID. The issue is we have a lazy populace that doesn’t vote.
Voting should be frictionless. Period. And there's no excuse for it not to be.
I have citizenship to a European country where you need an ID and a registered address to vote. With that you are on the voter roll and you will get the notification automatically. The Country (for now) is still considered a model democracy: Germany. (Formerly fascist and communist, before that monarchy.) Elections are called the same evening and vote count is completed the next day. On paper. Not some machines.
The real reason Trump/GOP are in power is FOX News and RW media. That will ceaselessly shill for Trump/GOP, no matter how badly they screw up, and where 85% of conservative voters get some/most/all of their alternative facts pretending to be news.
That Nov. '24 Ipsos poll found that of those 85%, a full 80% have completely drunk the cool aid, believing that we're already in a recession, that inflation is still as high as it was 2-3 years ago, that crime/unemployment are at all-time highs. And that's before you go into the really Gaga GOP nonsense, like that immigrants are eating people's dogs and cats. Thus, a full 68% of GOP voters live entirely in a fantasyland cut from whole cloth by our friends at FOX News.
People notice the bad. They noticed when gas went up after the invasion of Ukraine. They noticed grocery prices going up after COVID and beyond.
People don't notice when things improve. Gas prices have been back to normal for at least 2 years. The price of a lot of things are still higher, but incomes are higher too.
They better fucking notice all the bad shit coming down the pike as Trump tanks the economy then.
All true. But the reason people didn't notice when consumer inflation spiked massively a few years ago, and that it was hugely, bigly, big bigly worse in literally every OTHER country but ours, was all due to our friends at FOX News.
And you can bet that if Trump had won in '20, it would've been FOX News running unending segments on how much bigly big worse inflation was in every other country but ours. We would've been thanking our lucky stars that Biden...errr, Trump was keeping inflation so (relatively) low.
I've got the state DL that is not "real ID" (thank God to this right wing repub allowance) since I have a passport. You don't know HOW crooked LE can be unless you've lived in TX....however, I now live in another blue city in another red state and am white, so I've never had issues with voting like TX does to mainly minority Houston. She's right about that.
The election was rigged. (Smart Elections). Yet many did vote for this hatred. I regrettably had to shun some of my family until they apologize and admit they believed the lies for evil reasons. Yes, people with true integrity need to get involved.
The real pushback is just beginning. The protests are growing by the day as it really settles in for the low-information masses how awful it is. Way too few Americans pay attention or bother to vote, but this is not normal, and it's not sustainable. Republicans are afraid to face their own constituents, and Democrats who aren't cowed by the Trumpist bullying are finally going after it with rallies in red districts. The markets are tanking, Tesla is tanking, the feckless WaPo is hemorrhaging its best journalists, and our co-presidents are increasingly deranged. Bobby Brainworm is talking diet and cod liver oil while measles spreads and kills. The court cases are piling up, with none trending in favor of this reckless administration. They're abducting dissidents and bullying universities. Even ludicrously unqualified people like Duffy are complaining publicly about the chainsaw approach, now that he has actual responsibilities involving life and death.
Oh, and they have to pass another stopgap funding bill by the end of the week, even as they run around mindlessly praising Dear Leader.
As always, many thanks to Paul Krugman for calmly debunking their idiotic claims about government and the economy. It puts breathing room between us and the abyss. For now.
To me (from a somewhat safe spot in Europe) the tRump inauguration photo with all the tech mongrels (I mean moguls) in the back looks like the ballroom of the Titanic or the Overlook Hotel, doomed.
Nothin professional about the Trump. Amateur thievery covered by weak lies. With Trump prevarication R us.
Not amateur. The GOP is poised to pass an even bigger tax cut for the rich this year, that will add $2.5 trillion in red ink to this year's budget. THAT's why Elon's so feverishly attempting to cut non-GOP government spending: to offset the bigly big tax cuts, 70% of which will flow to the richest 5%.
Jeffy & Elon will be able to buy more yachts, while the rest of us starve.
Sounds about right. I'm beginning to feel like the only chance is a civil war. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but I'm preparing myself mentally for it, just in case. I wasn't expecting to have great longevity to begin with, but this will significantly reduce my life expectancy.
Don't EVEN go there. A civil war in a country with the planet's largest nuclear and biological weapons stockpiles? Once President Musk is done spiking inflation through the roof and trashing the economy, if we can't utterly trounce them in the '26 midterms, then we're stupid morons who'll get the monarchy we deserve.
There won’t be any free and fair elections in 2026. Not in red states, and blue states will try but they will be ignored.
Elections in Red states are already rigged. Gerrymandering, closed or overwhelmed polling stations in Dem precinct, purged voting rolls.
It's not my doing - not that I'll sit it out if it happens.
No adults this time around. The line in the sandbox is being continuously scraped over by the petulant kiddies in command who apparently don't like lines in their sandbox.
Speaking of lines , apparently the people
t-Rump has appointed to tell us how “ awful “
things were under Biden , believe we can be tricked ( again ) into believing that government spending is out of control and the solution is an
austerity plan - - not for the wealthy- but for
the vast majority of us. However, it is clear from the graph shown in this article that government spending as a percentage of GDP has remained
fairly constant at around 20 percent since it fell
from closer to 25 percent up through the Reagan years .
The deficit ( not shown) was primarily due to huge tax cuts- favoring the already well off .
One thing I advocated during my years as an
Economics professor, was to break out the spending between current operating costs
and investment in infrastructure and other capital projects which would add to the productive capacity for the future. The way
money is spent matters.
So - basically- a line is a line - and if you don’t know how to interpret it - people might fall for whatever nonsense others with an agenda
wish to inflict upon them .
Biden’s infrastructure spending will yield positive returns to the nation ; Trump’s
austerity plan will tighten the belts of the many
while paving the way for the few to laugh all the way to the bank .
Damn — using actual economics to assess the shit that’s hitting the fan? Wellll — that just ain’t fair…. 🙄
So true, but he's only interested in tricking a few of the more weak minded MAGAnuts out there. He needs cannon fodder for the upcoming civil war he wants to start.
Your assessment of King MAGA's austerity - which is little more of a continuation of the Reagan plan, as you pointed out - is spot on, especially that last part about him and his cronies laughing all the way to the bank.
It forces me to wonder how an actual opposition party would act in the face of a narcissistic madman destroying the government in front of our faces. I have to conclude it would be radically different from what the Democrats are doing... whatever that is. Can someone point out to me what it is they're doing? I've looked but I'm not seeing anything.
You, the voters chose to keep them out. Without a mandate to act on the voters’ behalf what exactly were you hoping a hobbled congress would do? I will point out that Bernie Sanders is out there speaking at rallies to thousands of people st a time and lots of Democratic Congress members are holding jam packed town halls. So get out there and find them & get involved.
👆🎯
With no position of power, what are the Democrats supposed to be doing? Making speeches or proposing legislation gets you nowhere if the «liberal» media refuses to cover it. I suppose someone could could self-immolate on the floor of the House and that might be up there for one news cycle. But then it’ll be back to how people need to have empathy for «Middle America» and how destroying everything that made America the strongest, richest, most envied country will ultimately pay off with the added benefit that you will be allowed to publicly hate and demean people for who they are.
Democrats are electoral failures, and they seem to wear that mantle proudly. They are more interested in acting like the adults in the room than actually putting hands on Republicans and fighting back against their lies and gaslighting. I am shocked at how weak they act toward the R's. It's to the point that it seems like they put their money on the opposition and they're taking the dive.
And what are you doing, Syd?
I' not religious, but thank God for Bernie.
They’re sitting in the world’s most expensive Adult Day Care Center, playing with their lollipops.
Exactly! They've disappeared into the wilderness. So effing depressing.
I’m looking at Bernie, AOC, Adam Kinzinger, Chris Murphy, and Rachel Maddow, to start with. There are so many more. Don’t give up hope. Read Heather.
There aren't any adults in the room with Trimp- just yes men and lickspittles hoping to curry favor with an aging, mentally deficient despot.
It was deliberate. I am sure tRump has had many counseling and advice sessions with Putin in the last 2 years. Putin walked him through the process of turning the US into a kleptocracy with a pass through Kakistocracy. The advice some of our polity could have used back in November is 'be careful what you vote for - you may get it.'
Actually, it’s Orban’s playbook that’s being copied. Bibi did the same thing and look what happened after he gutted his intelligence & defensive commands.
Orban's a Russian asset too.
He sure is.
I'd say a lot longer than two years. Remember, King Krasnov was compromised by the KGB all the way back in the '70's. He was low hanging fruit for them.
when this is all over and we are picking up the pieces, remember and remind people that the GOP Congressional members are a bunch of worms who have no problem sitting in front of a camera to lie and steal if it means they get to keep their government jobs.
Trump, who was constantly rebuffed by the "adults in the room" in his first term made sure that there would be none present in his second term. His rosy economy from the first term was possible only because of the people he has banished from his second.
And this is why dictators have a problem accessing good information, and end up surrounded by a protective bubble of yes-men until reality comes knocking (see Putin and his "three day" war plan for Ukraine)
US Congress: the world’s biggest and costliest Adult Day Care Center.
How about cutting their bloated salaries and health benefits. They do nothing. They can't even put together a budget.
Republican senators and representatives have made Congress irrelevant although the Constitution places it front and center. It’s an astounding contrast to the English history the founders considered as they wrote the Constitution. Parliament vigorously defended its power against absolute monarchs on numerous occasions. Now Republicans reject the culture and history they claim to defend in favor of the very different eastern European experience.
The Republican machine purged itself of almost all decent members, i.e., the "adults" you speak of. We already know that Trump has no line in the sand. He'll grift for all he can get. The cryptocurrency scam is one example. The insistence that all fraud and waste are in Medicare and Medicaid is another. Sure, there is fraud and waste there, but firing inspectors general instead of bolstering investigative offices is not the way to go. Ditto in the IRS. We already know that such operations return much more money to the the treasury than they cost.
Adults? Maybe you give adult way too much credit.
Those of us who subscribe to The Economist magazine remember its October 19, 2024 issue, with the cover "The Envy Of The World", referring to the US economy, and stating " The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust."
Trump & his "detox" minions are attempting to rewrite the Biden economy & shift the blame for the current chaos.
Yup...and Fox with scream it and main stream will tap dance softly so not to be sued ....NO freedom of the press = No truth. Britain still has strict fact checking on their press so they do not have to worry about is it true or not...they get the facts .... we are in a cesspool of lies and manipulation - that's a BIG one to turn around
That "The Envy Of The World" article was a disinformation campaign by The Globalist Cabal trying to meddle in US elections in order to destroy America. Don't listen to them, instead look at that bright shiny disrespect from Zelenskyy! /s
You’re anti-globalist cabal is just a pawn of Putin — the disrespect was clearly Trumphuk and boy toy JD being completely horrible in their tag teaming insults to Zelenskyy — who was invited to attend as a guest of the White House and then verbally mugged.
Will they succeed? They got America to believe there was no insurrection. Now they’re trying to get America to believe the Biden economy sucked. Will they succeed?
Trumpists are not making excuses, they are lying. It is just that simple. The Biden economy was the envy of the world in spite of years of Republican attacks and sabotage. New jobs were created every single month Biden was in office. Unemployment was at record lows. But Trump and the corporate media convinced the voters that inflation, inflation from Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic, was a crisis...even as Biden's team brought it under control. Trump and his thugs will drive the country into recession, if not depression, and he and his oligarch buddies will get rich off the ashes.
Yes, the 2024 presidential campaign was mostly conducted on made-up issues and lots and lots of propaganda and hype. MAGA hype about the "southern border out of control" "country overrun by immigrant murders and rapists," "terrible economy" "price of gas and eggs are sky high" and so forth. I agree, Biden and his team did a good job of handling inflation and the economic disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. I don't know about the mental activity of Biden but at least he could select good people for cabinet and other offices. And the selection of people is one of the main jobs of a President.
But the voters seem to love propaganda and hype and very few voters think for themselves.
Best wishes.
A great question is how the Democrats cut through the propaganda and hype to get their message out. I think that their short coming in the past election was messaging. MAGA set the agenda and talking points (on mostly culture war issues) and kept at it.
Biden/Harris had a great economy and did some good things. But you have to tell the voters. You cannot depend on the voters to do any independent thinking or find facts for themselves. You have to tell them and tell them often.
Jon Stewart had Maria Ressa on his podcast…she made the point that the tech companies have been allowed to effectively rewire our brains ..move fast & break things & they broke democracy. We need TRUTH back, until the tech companies are regulated we will continue to see this loss of trust in our institutions. The issue isn’t so much democrats messaging to me, it’s that the republicans have been allowed to peddle straight disinformation & lies & they were enabled by tech. They’re getting what they asked for & also seeing their wealth vanish as the stock market crashes….
Stagflation is much more fun. They can blame the Fed.
Deep bow to you for giving us non-economists ammo for our conversations with people who've imbibed the administration's Kool-Aid and Mr. Musk's I-don't-know-what: ketamine cocktail?
Thank you for bringing light and structure into the jungle of information. Unfortunately almost all TV media outlets do not look at this data in that way and repeat the same message over and over.
tap dancing the old soft shoe..so they wont be sued ....... =Hungary/Russia is what he gave us ........
I miss the days when having ethics and principles actually meant something. Will I ever wake up from this nightmare?
I can't even watch a movie as in reality we have real life bad guys in control and no Hero yet
Big promises, lame excuses...rank dishonesty. Buckle up for "detox" from the Biden economy that the WSJ 10/3//24 said: "The Next President Inherits a Remarkable Economy" then envy of the world. https://www.wsj.com/economy/the-next-president-inherits-a-remarkable-economy-7be2d059
Dem admins created 98% of jobs since 1989 while GOP lost jobs & ballooned the deficit.
#VoteBlue
It's starting to look like 2001 when the go-go Clinton economy turned into a recession no one saw coming. The Europeans pulled their investments over lawless behavior: Bush stealing the presidency, Enron, WorldComMCI etc. This time perhaps the Asians will join them. In any case, Japan and China should start unloading their US debt. When the Nazis defaulted on foreign debt, they offered to repay in "blocked marks" that could only be used to buy German goods. Doesn't that sound like MAGA?
Will the Trump’s Base notice? They don’t notice their immediate spatiotemporal surroundings. Even though they believed their neighborhoods were safe they were convinced that the country outside was a crime-ridden hellscape. Even when things were, apart from the price of eggs, relatively good for them they believed the country was in recession. So I’d anticipate that if the country does go into recession they’ll buy Trump’s claim that it’s just a temporary speedbump, a temporal anomaly, on the way to the golden future. Regardless of spatiotemporally locally conditions they believe that the big picture would be wonderful government is dismantled and the country is run by big tough guys doing business. If people are dying of the measles that’s just a minor, local issue—they’d be dying more from vaccines. Kick out the ‘experts’, kick out the wimps and weak womincks, let the big tough guys govern with the sledgehammer and chainsaw and beat the crap out of anyone who objects—that will fix everything—eventually.
Hard to day. It was easy to imagine crime and the economy were horrible "somewhere else" in spite of one's own situation being fine. It will be harder to imagine that everything if fine when people find that their own situation is tanking. I have been listening to the BBC interviewing far spokesmen and they have very scathing things to say about Trump's tariffs.
" It was easy to imagine crime and the economy were horrible "somewhere else" in spite of one's own situation being fine."
Of course. Faux Newspeak told them so. It >must< be true.
Meanwhile, MAGAnuts can just blissfully sit in their trailers, swilling case after case of Schlitz while dosing out on Faux Newspeak.
The suspension of belief for them has shifted to, "this is temporary." This is unprecedented! Never has anyone tanked the US economy on purpose in the blind pursuit of an ideology. The Black guy keeps saying: race is their ace in the hole they used to drag us down this path. Trump shouted white grievance when he wasn't making false economic promises. Be sure that as things worsen he will holler some more about DEI...maybe we should rearrange the letters to DIE.....since we are now in economic suicide?
The Trump team is doomed to fail because their end goal is a "pure" economy where only Trumpists hold positions of power. That involves purging all POCs, people who identify somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, people who hold any political views left of the John Birch society, and most women of any political belief as well. The NSDAP was able to pull off "Gleichschaltung" in 1933 because they only had to purge maybe about 2% of the population (Jews were less than 1% of all Germans, Socialists weren't heavily represented in the upper ranks of the bureacracy or military). The Trumpists are trying to purge the majority of Americans from having any representation in government, media or the commanding heights of the economy. It's hard to see how that turns out well.
...and when there's no one left to purge, they'll start turning on each other, because it's their nature.
They already are turning on each other where do you think all those threats that Republican Congress people are afraid of are coming from? Not from anybody but their own.
That's good news. The more infighting the better. Hmmmmm, that just gave me an idea. We should work on "subverting" as many of them as we can...
Right on cue: https://bsky.app/profile/roryjohnston.bsky.social/post/3lk5hyhzra22v
J.D. Vance came to Europe and in key speeches lectured Europeans about freedom of speech. Essentially arguing that in Germany Nazis should not be restrained in their rantings and in the UK simply lying.
Musk does the same.
Yet in the US Khalil is facing being deported, AP news is being intimidated and Universities are being threatened by these same people.
…..and we have to keep writing the facts because we have been taught and believe they matter. Yet to so many people they just don’t. Oddly, disbelieving fact is usually for reasons enabling hatred and awful behaviour.
How do you get to a world where Professor Krugman’s clear, logical and fact based information is treated with more respect than rabid hate filled lies?
Doublethink is what they’re peddling…like the Russians…not really the country I’d want to emulate…
Arabs organized all last year to get Trump in office...now it's time to pay the Piper....I will be interested when 2026 comes...THEN they can show me they learned their lesson....for now? His @ss needs to go! This is what the Arab American community fought for so it is on them.
At face value, it all doesn't make sense. Bessent is not a fool. The only way to understand what their words actually mean is to study the playbook they're using. What is that playbook? A combination of the neofascist Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 and the "Network State" that tech billionaires such as Peter Thiel (and his follower Vance) have been working on for years already. By "efficiency" neofascists don't mean "a government that increases health, education and prosperity levels for the people". By "toxic economy" they don't mean an economy that is "strong" in today's meaning of the word. By "efficiency" they refer to a very specific neofascist ideology, namely the form of neofascism that wants the government to be "run like a business".
If you want to see this ideology put into practice, study PROSPERA, a "Network State" in Honduras (www.prospera.com). The idea is fascist at its core, so like all forms of fascism, the power of the executive "bundles" ("fasces" in Latin means "bundle") the power of the legislative (Congress, the branch of government responsible for making laws and controlling the purse strings) and the power of the courts to interpret the law and enforce it... into its own power. As Vance tweeted recently, this means that from now on, Congress and the courts play a merely advisory role, which is non-binding, with the executive having the last word. Or as Steve Bannon explained in a recent WSJ interview: if you want the government to function like a private businesses, imagine the merger of two businesses. The deal itself is always negotiated by the CEOs. Then, you need corporate lawyers to put the agreement into legal fine print and work out the details. Congress, under the neofascist GOP, is reduced to the role of corporate lawyers, working NOT for "we the people" but for the executive branch of government.
THAT is, according to neofascists, the most "efficient" way of functioning, for any government.
Efficient for whom? - is then the next question.
As Prospera illustrates: efficient for the wealthiest. The idea is that democracy is bad for world peace and that fascism is better at it. Why? Because neofascism is an oligarchic system of government, in other words, a government by and for the wealthiest. Citizens are treated as "customers", so the more you can pay, the more services you get, knowing that in the end, it is always the company that decides what to give and what to take, so it can refuse you as a customer at any moment.
For the same reason, those who aren't part of the wealthiest are considered "NPC", a gamer term for "nonplaying character". In other words: these people are irrelevant to the extent that they don't make the wealthiest wealthier.
THIS is why they consider government programs that redistribute wealth to be "toxic". Their ideology, their concept of a "healthy state" is one in which all government services are entirely privatized. You cannot pay for them? Feel free to leave the country and move to a different place.
For more info about Network States (THE concept we should be discussing right now) see Gil Duran (a former Diane Feinstein advisor who studied Network States and continues to write about them on his Substack The Nerd Reich) or "Crack-up Capitalism" by Quinn Slobodian.
Finally, why do they need to plunge the economy into a recession and create so much chaos? Here, we need to remember that many of them studied Saul Alinsky. The idea is that without massive disruption and chaos, people will never be so desperate that they'll be willing to give up fight or that they'll actively WANT a dictatorship. So the more chaos, the better... . And as Hannah Arendt showed, fascist regimes usually stay in power by claiming to their voters that they are fighting against "the establishment". They can only do so in a credible way as long as there is an establishment to fight against, so something that continues to wreak havoc. In a fascist regime, it's that regime itself that creates the chaos, while its propaganda machine spins it as the result of the "elites" and deep state still active inside the government...
This is a clear expose on the underpinnings of the Trumphuk/Muskalini/Heritage cabal. It answers the question: what do “they” want? Well what “they” want clearly is to destroy the US economy in order to do a take over and remake the country as a docile autocracy benefiting an oligarchy linked to a narrow extreme minority ideology.
Thanks for the clear analysis and for "calling bull shit" on Bessent.
Yesterday I opened the NYT on my phone and the top headline was about the S&P. Then I opened the WP on my phone and the top headline was also about the stock market. Then I thought to myself, I wonder how Fox News is positioning what’s happening? So I opened up Fox News on my phone. And guess what? I scrolled and I scrolled, and I didn’t see a single article about the stock market. It is so important to remember that those who support Trump and read Fox News are not getting the same messaging about what is happening in this country. We may know that in theory, but it’s disturbing to open up their news platform and see it with your own two eyes.
Are these people not checking their retirement or investment accounts?
I think financial literacy for many Americans is quite low.
Many don't have either I imagine.
It’s truly astonishing that they are supporting the destruction of Social security & Medicaid then.
They don't have retirement of investment accounts, or they are managed through their work.
"However, one thing has been consistent about Donald Trump’s economic rhetoric: rank dishonesty." Hear! Hear!
If trump isn't a russian agent, what would he be doing differently if he were?
Joe Biden’s S&P 500 was literally +50% when he left office! Thanks Brandon!
And, thank you Professor for providing the real data that proves we are all NOT CRAZY.
Bessent and the GOP’s gaslighting only fool MAGA idiots and right-wing news. With Paul Krugman’s help, we know better AND we can prove it.