More likely he gets transfusions (like the character in Silicon Valley if anyone remembers that). There may even be scientific evidence that this can help, which doesn’t make it any less ghoulish.
When Pres. Merkley is talking to the Russian Pres., I imagine Trump on the other end of the line to ratchet up my paranoia. Of course, a TACO moment would end the movie prematurely.
“Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” Fluoridation of water…you know it’s “a monstrous communist conspiracy!”. Nice public health experiment going on in Idaho…if I were a dentist, I would be setting out my sign there. Should be a booming business in a couple of years.
You might think that people would catch on eventually. Trump takes immediate and full credit for anything that seems positive in the moment, and blames Biden/Obama/Clinton for any harsh reality that emerges. And of course, Fox News echoes it.
And Los Angeles, and Iowa farm workers, meat packers in Nebraska, and healthcare workers in Seattle, and your Mom’s baby sitter. Those who wash us, make the beds, harvest broccoli in 90 degree heat, repair our roofs, 11 million hard-working, and often tax paying, workers! We are the envy of every other country (were) because people want to come and make a good life. You want to bust drug dealers, look at the money…cryptocurrency.
Pay your dues, support your community, work hard, love everyone for who they are, be honest, don’t cheat or steal…be a very good Jew for his entire life..wife and kids, carpenter.
I will note that he would have likely hated the idea of ‘Christian’s’ who think all this doesn’t matter as you’ll be forgiven regardless…it’s not a blanket pardon, you will still be held accountable. St. Peter has the accounting.
Dorothy L Sayers said it very well in one of her theological essays. Forgiveness (meaning, she said, the restoration of right relations) requires repentance, which means fully recognizing what one did wrong; and penance because of it. By logic, not by a mystical decree.
What an old school idea..repentance. You have Tom acknowledge the failure, you have to actually repair the damage when possible, you have accept the moral/legal consequences for your actions, and so start learning. This is not a bad definition of WOKE! Sexism, racism, fear and hate…how is that the teachings of Jesus? Big black trucks and toxic masculinity…
Many MAGAts know he is lying but are willing to support a racist in the WH, regardless of what he does, including criminal acts, extortion, bribes, threats and pedophilia.
Be fair, nobody doesn't think that the stupid and corrupt don't need protection. Consequently, a new America has arisen in defense of privilege, favor and protectionism; an alliance of friends with benefits. A contemporary example might be the Taliban or most of the mullahs, who are pretty good guys for the most part but dumb as paint and have to defend their culture to the death or no girls would pay any attention to them. It's no coincidence that the US turned its back on the world some time ago and now we manufacture our own enemies at home that look a lot like the old ones but are just more expensive.
"A contemporary example might be the Taliban or most of the mullahs, who are pretty good guys for the most ..."
Really? Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and banning girls from attending school is "pretty ... good"?
"... nobody doesn't think that the stupid and corrupt don't need protection."
You've got to be kidding? What is the purpose of government, if it's not to uphold the law? How far did you get in school again?
The headline on the AP story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer nails it: "U.S. employers slash hiring as Trump advances a punishing trade agenda". Subheadline: "U.S. hiring is slowing sharply as President Donald Trump’s erratic and radical trade policies paralyze businesses and raise doubts about the outlook for the world’s largest economy". I wish the NYT headline writers would take lessons from whoever wrote that headline! Speak the truth!
Due to gerrymandering and the grossly unrepresentative Senate, you can run the US into the ground while only having to fool some of the people all of the time.
Joe—we have a cultural legacy of being fooled by seemingly good people, and for not voting, at the very least as a measure of our accountability for pulling our weight.
Sexism, racism, eugenics, are all at the top of the list…in our cultural DNA so deeply people don’t see it, or want to forget and forgive.
At the moment it’s all about money and marketing, seeking the smell!
How will our children judge us? The 70,000,000 who couldn’t be bothered have a special place in political hell! And one equal vote…the Supremes need to wrap their brains around a vote of ‘equal’ value.
In 2030, each of 4 of Rupert's children gain 25% control of this fascist anti-American press group . Rupert tried to rescind that part of his will last year and failed in U.S. court. One heir , Lachlan ,now the appointed head of the media empire, is as far right as is his father, but there is hope for the civility of the other three. But we should not wait . You must go ! Anywhere ! And divest your self of Fox News , which has made tens of billions by lying every day through a medium which is owned by the American people.
The distinction between a _leader_ vs _boss-man_ is that the latter finds a (victory) parade and places themselves at head rather than leading the actual (battle) charge. Perhaps there should be a new book **Art of the Steal** which identifies (vis)-credit where the visibility of credit is (visually)claimed despite lack of contribution.
Not just tariff uncertainty. In my field (transportation infrastructure) it’s the loss of government spending, either actual or feared. Same in scientific research. The revision downward is no surprise, as we already see it in delayed or canceled RFPs. Consulting firms, contractors, and universities have been on edge this whole time.
My friends who are consultants have been telling me for months that their clients are frozen, unable to consider signing a contract for a future project until there is more certainty.
In pharma it's the situation. With disastrous cuts in early stage research pharma is looking at a dry pipeline in 2-3 years. No hiring, lots of firing.
Ugh. I'm sure Trump has NO CLUE how much pharma depends on basic science research and early stage research that gets done at universities with the assistance of US taxpayer money.
All investments are based on forecasts, predictions whose value are based on some sense of ‘certainty,’ at least from my bank! The bank of Donnie is pumped up by folks who know he cheats, in their favor! …the real Crypto Crypt!
Yup. Our contract research & development business is seeing not only delays and cancellations of RFPs, but elimination of entire categories of contract vehicles that we depend on. It's a mess.
Wait! Wasn't Chump the #1 graduate in his class at Wharton? Doesn't that mean he knows more about the economy than all the Nobel laureate economists put together? Don't you realize he's playing 8-dimensional chess?
As he said yesterday, the tariffs have already added trillions to US revenue. I can see the national debt shrinking to nearly nothing, probably by Hallowe'en!
Just for those who may think this is hyperbole: He does cheat at golf. Established fact. Read Rick Reilly’s Commander in Cheat. And any golfer will tell you that anyone who cheats in golf will cheat in life.
Yes, while he has only taken an oath a very few times in his life…maybe he testified sometime under oath but I don’t think so, he has broken his oath. Not counting the wives, but lots of people ignore the till death do us part part.
But they were trying to explain when his caddy dropped the ball exactly where he wanted it, it wasn’t open and above board, it was stealthy! “Oh wow, What a great shot Mr President!”
I don't quite understand why there are so many people desirous of sucking up to fools. They really seem to take pleasure in demeaning themselves. How were they formed? Was it their upbringing, something learned by the culture?
After WWII, psychologists tried to understand what made people follow Hitler and, by contrast, people in a small town in northwest France took in and hid so many people fleeing right under the Germans' noses.They did it at great peril to their own lives. When asked why they had done it they seemed puzzled by the question and answered, "it's just what you do".
So what makes MAGA people grovel at the feet of the king with no clothes ?
They want to belong, feel dismissed and someone comes along and offers belonging, plus they get to hate everyone else….the elites, smart people who think and act like they are better than them, people who get a free ride. A big part of it is the idea of intrinsic…you work hard but don’t get rich…are you a bad person? Donny-John, the circus barker, is the perfect person…he literally doesn’t give a flying fuck for the MAGA maggots! But he says he loves them! And they believe…Wizard of Oz!
Yes, I get that. But that's the proximate cause(like falling & breaking your neck is the proximate cause of death but a stroke made you fall and is the real reason). A lot of people find themselves in that situation and don't choose that path. Something formed them so that they would react this way
Yes, but I want to know what prepared them to be that way, family upbringing education church? Some factors laid the groundwork. Your description is of what they've become due to that groundwork
Is this sarcasm? He took (audited?) a course or two at Wharton, never did anything approaching an attempt at a degree. As to his actual academic record, that's a National Security secret, or something, unlike Obama's record - but of course that's (a) outstanding (b) FAKE NEWS! (which btw is yet another phrase that the Republicans have lifted and mirror-imaged from sane people.
Of course it's sarcasm. If he really did graduate summa cum laude from Wharton, don't you think there would be billboards in every conceivable location at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster and the White House? Or big posters like his Time Man of The Year cover?
He obviously flunked the pop quiz given in the first week of Econ 101; he stopped attending and never went back, probably paid somebody to take it (and most of his other courses) for him.
I feel like Apple has demonstrated how you can screw up making investment decisions. Apple moved production of its iPhone for the US market to India because of the high tarrifs put on China. Now India has high tarrifs.
I was puzzled by articles in the last few days, touting Apple's good sales report as evidence that the company was as strong as ever. These same articles said, right up front, that the increased sales were due to people buying iPhones in an effort to beat the implementation of tariffs. OK.... so what does that do to Apple's sales down the road? This was clearly a blip.
THIS! Is the Art of the Deal no one is talking about. Although, there's voodoo much to talk about we should probably just focus on EPSTEIN. The voters we need have a Love Island attention span.
The unfortunate reality is that the folks who put this guy in power are incapable of analysis, which is why the voted for him despite all the analysis - economic and political - which predicted the harm he would do. That being the case, if he blames the bad numbers on the ghost of Jimmy Carter, they will believe him.
The other shock might be reversal of tariffs on a sudden basis. I just read the emergency action legislation, or whatever it is, that has been cited by Trump as the legal justification for tariffs. Indeed, as the appellate court noted earlier this week in testimony, there is not one use of the word "tariff" in those laws. As has been discussed in this column, the claim that there is an emergency is warped, and a plain reading of the law indicates clearly that it has no application to a chronic perceived imbalance of trade, especially when applied to Switzerland, Lesotho and Laos. Inevitably, this will hit the Supreme Court, and the Justices are now held to a standard, written in a concurring opinion by Kavanaugh, that the Court can and will respond quickly to issues that realistically have the need for rapid assessment and decision. Of course, by then, Trump may have sealed the fate of those tariffs even more by failing to cleave to the law by reporting to Congress (required at 6 months and then periodically).
The Court maintains that it looks to text, history as key factors in interpretation. An educated normal person will read the law and conclude that Trump's use of tariffs is over-the-top unconstitutional action.
I don't think he's corrupted the BLS yet, but I'm sure if the numbers were off, there would definitely be whistleblowers telling us about it - I'm sure the data scientists at the BLS have no loyalty to the current admin.
The whole trick is that you can believe whatever the hell you want!!! The last thing this regime wants is to be incumbered by facts. Alt world, alt facts, that ole alt time religion, down the rabbit hole, up the spout and into orbit with starlinks own Karoline Leavitt to explain to all.
It seems like tourism-related jobs should be a good place to look for spillover effects. I just came home from a conference in Toronto. There were three (3!) people going through customs.
Saw a PBS report on tourism spots in Vermont. Business was down about 35% everywhere. One ski hill operator tried to call all the people who didn't renew their annual passes. He got through IIRC about 70% of them. They all quoted the 51st state rhetoric.
Today the Trump 35% tariff on Canada, a former friend and ally of the USA, takes effect. He did it because he says “Canada is mean and nasty” boohoo! There is nobody meaner or nastier than himself, but go ahead blame others. About 53% of Canadian businesses are owned by American companies, so he’s tariffing his own people. He thinks they will pull out and come back to the USA not realizing it takes years to move a business and he will be dead by then. So, they have no incentive to move, but are probably waiting for him to just go away.
The WSJ had an editorial on aluminum last night. Smelting is very energy consuming and thus companies have been attracted to Canada’s cheap hydropower.
The article points out that it takes several years to build a smelter and if would need new several new nuclear reactors to power them. Is it really worth it?
Many Americans never consider how much money Corporations save by operating in Canada. Corporations in Canada don’t pay for the over the top cost of American employee health insurance. If we could explain to Corporations that it is in their interests to support Universal Healthcare.
I studied industrial development in the 1800s, most specifically in Paterson NJ. For tariffs to succeed they must be relevant to a real industry with real workers and factories. So it was that an 1861 tariff on finished silk cloth led to the growth of US silk mills in the area around Paterson. Weavers moving from cotton - which in Paterson was in decline to silk).
In fact across northen NJ towns with declining iron forges replaced them with silk mills- the iron / steel industry moved to the midwest.
There is simply nothing like this in most US industries or markets. So we won't see new makers of plastic toys emerge as toys are made more expensive. It would take year to develop that industry here. It won't even be easy to open more drug making factories despite tariffs.
There is no genius at work with Trump's tariff rampage nor even an effective plan.
Ty for your industrial history perspective. I wonder if out of all this gloom miasma new solutions might emerge…beginning with cheap disposable plastic toys.
Well if Trump we’re serious he would have manufacturers in. One sector that we lost a lot of is furniture. We have the raw materials and once this provided lots of jobs in the Appalachians. Jobs that paid well for a mostly depressed area. Could we claw this back? But other things… well if the makers are not interested then we won’t get anywhere.
This August deadline would have been extended again if wasn’t for the Epstein drama. Another diversion, Trump will throw the economy under the bus to save himself. As you pointed out long term capital investments will not happen as long as this yo-yo tariff policy is in place. I’m attending protest marches and writing to my congressional delegation. I cannot sit and watch. Thank you Paul for words of wisdom, so much appreciated!
Can we name a single good thing drumpf has done for this country? He did push the Canadians to elect a liberal party just as they were on the point of electing their own drumpf. And the EU and UK are working more closely than any other time since Brexit. But for us?
"Donald Trump has already added extensive gold décor throughout the White House since returning to office, including gold finishes, gilded ornaments, and gold-trimmed elements in the Oval Office and other areas"
He purportedly brought his, "gold guy" to tart up the WH , the guy who did similar abominations to Mar-a-lago. Poor Marjorie Merriweather Post. She must be rolling over in her grave
3) corporate pivot to AI, which not only eliminates certain jobs but also makes open jobs more difficult to fill bc AI resumes flood the hiring pipeline
It's the Commies, Paul. They're after our jobs and our precious bodily fluids.
Ouch! Steven Miller is a vampire for sure, and I think JD as well…maybe the whole 2025 team are vampires…just saying. They act like them!?
Peter Thiel really is a vampire. He drinks the blood of young men under the fallacy it will make him youthful.
More likely he gets transfusions (like the character in Silicon Valley if anyone remembers that). There may even be scientific evidence that this can help, which doesn’t make it any less ghoulish.
The blood?
Unrelated spam bot. Reported.
Ditto.
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That bot shows up multiple times in non-paywalled articles. It “replies” at random.
JD looks more like a werewolf to me.
If I see him going into Lee Ho Fook's, I'm gonna run.
He’s just trying to pass…the beard comes right off!
But his eye-liner is permanent, which makes him a "girly mon".
Who ever saw a vampire with a beard? I suspect that Vance is a werewolf!
Dr Strangelove is painfully apt for much of the absurdity of Trump and his administration.
E,
.g., “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here — this is the war room” lines seems apt for Trump’s messages to Putin re Ukraine.
Okay…I was leaning toward “Idiocracy.” Perhaps it’s more genre based—slapstick vs satire…
Definitely Idiocracy. That movie was sickeningly prescient.
When Pres. Merkley is talking to the Russian Pres., I imagine Trump on the other end of the line to ratchet up my paranoia. Of course, a TACO moment would end the movie prematurely.
I love a Strangelove reference.
General Jack D. Ripper, your table is ready.
Remember Colonel Bat Guano?
"If you don't get the President, then you're answerable to the Coke a Cola Co."
Way before Oliver North's time.
“Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” Fluoridation of water…you know it’s “a monstrous communist conspiracy!”. Nice public health experiment going on in Idaho…if I were a dentist, I would be setting out my sign there. Should be a booming business in a couple of years.
Purity of essence!
Yeah it's vampires at work sucking our life-blood and the economy's
Oh c’mon. It’s Hillary Clinton.
It's the Agonians taking our Brain Cells!
You are going to owe the Coca Cola corporation for this.
🤣
monica
It is, of course, obvious that it's the immigrants. Are those "documents" even real? Pfff.
Don’t you mean the radical leftist Democrats?
You might think that people would catch on eventually. Trump takes immediate and full credit for anything that seems positive in the moment, and blames Biden/Obama/Clinton for any harsh reality that emerges. And of course, Fox News echoes it.
And, sadly, his base believes it. Voting Republican is easier than thinking. That's how we got here.
My favorite Bumper Snicker, “Vote Republican, It’s easier than Thinking!” Jesus said ‘Vote Red!’ No, that’s a lie…Jesus said leave it to others…
I think Jesus, a Texas carpenter, was just hauled off by ICE.
And Los Angeles, and Iowa farm workers, meat packers in Nebraska, and healthcare workers in Seattle, and your Mom’s baby sitter. Those who wash us, make the beds, harvest broccoli in 90 degree heat, repair our roofs, 11 million hard-working, and often tax paying, workers! We are the envy of every other country (were) because people want to come and make a good life. You want to bust drug dealers, look at the money…cryptocurrency.
If they had it their way, they would kill him, calling him the anti-christ.
T'was in Pittsburgh:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/31/2336070/-It-s-a-living-Bible-The-authorities-arrest-a-carpenter-named-Jesus
Jesus did say pay your taxes which implies that you are supposed to do your civic duty-like voting.
Pay your dues, support your community, work hard, love everyone for who they are, be honest, don’t cheat or steal…be a very good Jew for his entire life..wife and kids, carpenter.
I will note that he would have likely hated the idea of ‘Christian’s’ who think all this doesn’t matter as you’ll be forgiven regardless…it’s not a blanket pardon, you will still be held accountable. St. Peter has the accounting.
Dorothy L Sayers said it very well in one of her theological essays. Forgiveness (meaning, she said, the restoration of right relations) requires repentance, which means fully recognizing what one did wrong; and penance because of it. By logic, not by a mystical decree.
What an old school idea..repentance. You have Tom acknowledge the failure, you have to actually repair the damage when possible, you have accept the moral/legal consequences for your actions, and so start learning. This is not a bad definition of WOKE! Sexism, racism, fear and hate…how is that the teachings of Jesus? Big black trucks and toxic masculinity…
Donny-John is a shame and a sham!
Many MAGAts know he is lying but are willing to support a racist in the WH, regardless of what he does, including criminal acts, extortion, bribes, threats and pedophilia.
As long as racism is OK, all can be forgiven...even paying more for everything.
Trump hates the same people his base hates. That's his power
Be fair, nobody doesn't think that the stupid and corrupt don't need protection. Consequently, a new America has arisen in defense of privilege, favor and protectionism; an alliance of friends with benefits. A contemporary example might be the Taliban or most of the mullahs, who are pretty good guys for the most part but dumb as paint and have to defend their culture to the death or no girls would pay any attention to them. It's no coincidence that the US turned its back on the world some time ago and now we manufacture our own enemies at home that look a lot like the old ones but are just more expensive.
"A contemporary example might be the Taliban or most of the mullahs, who are pretty good guys for the most ..."
Really? Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and banning girls from attending school is "pretty ... good"?
"... nobody doesn't think that the stupid and corrupt don't need protection."
You've got to be kidding? What is the purpose of government, if it's not to uphold the law? How far did you get in school again?
The headline on the AP story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer nails it: "U.S. employers slash hiring as Trump advances a punishing trade agenda". Subheadline: "U.S. hiring is slowing sharply as President Donald Trump’s erratic and radical trade policies paralyze businesses and raise doubts about the outlook for the world’s largest economy". I wish the NYT headline writers would take lessons from whoever wrote that headline! Speak the truth!
You can fool all of the people some of the time,and some of the people all of the time. But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Here, the aha moment might be coming too late to do any good.
Due to gerrymandering and the grossly unrepresentative Senate, you can run the US into the ground while only having to fool some of the people all of the time.
There's a sucker born every minute. Two in red districts.
Joe—we have a cultural legacy of being fooled by seemingly good people, and for not voting, at the very least as a measure of our accountability for pulling our weight.
Sexism, racism, eugenics, are all at the top of the list…in our cultural DNA so deeply people don’t see it, or want to forget and forgive.
At the moment it’s all about money and marketing, seeking the smell!
How will our children judge us? The 70,000,000 who couldn’t be bothered have a special place in political hell! And one equal vote…the Supremes need to wrap their brains around a vote of ‘equal’ value.
We need to send the Australians home.
If you’re talking about Murdoch … I believe the Aussies don’t want him either!
They collected 500K signatures to allow a vote to get him off the island!
In 2030, each of 4 of Rupert's children gain 25% control of this fascist anti-American press group . Rupert tried to rescind that part of his will last year and failed in U.S. court. One heir , Lachlan ,now the appointed head of the media empire, is as far right as is his father, but there is hope for the civility of the other three. But we should not wait . You must go ! Anywhere ! And divest your self of Fox News , which has made tens of billions by lying every day through a medium which is owned by the American people.
I personally have zero to do with Faux Noise!
But your info is interesting, thanks.
The distinction between a _leader_ vs _boss-man_ is that the latter finds a (victory) parade and places themselves at head rather than leading the actual (battle) charge. Perhaps there should be a new book **Art of the Steal** which identifies (vis)-credit where the visibility of credit is (visually)claimed despite lack of contribution.
Yeah, one might think that wouldn't yah? 😉😥
Not just tariff uncertainty. In my field (transportation infrastructure) it’s the loss of government spending, either actual or feared. Same in scientific research. The revision downward is no surprise, as we already see it in delayed or canceled RFPs. Consulting firms, contractors, and universities have been on edge this whole time.
My friends who are consultants have been telling me for months that their clients are frozen, unable to consider signing a contract for a future project until there is more certainty.
In pharma it's the situation. With disastrous cuts in early stage research pharma is looking at a dry pipeline in 2-3 years. No hiring, lots of firing.
Ugh. I'm sure Trump has NO CLUE how much pharma depends on basic science research and early stage research that gets done at universities with the assistance of US taxpayer money.
All investments are based on forecasts, predictions whose value are based on some sense of ‘certainty,’ at least from my bank! The bank of Donnie is pumped up by folks who know he cheats, in their favor! …the real Crypto Crypt!
Yup. Our contract research & development business is seeing not only delays and cancellations of RFPs, but elimination of entire categories of contract vehicles that we depend on. It's a mess.
Bingo
Wait! Wasn't Chump the #1 graduate in his class at Wharton? Doesn't that mean he knows more about the economy than all the Nobel laureate economists put together? Don't you realize he's playing 8-dimensional chess?
As he said yesterday, the tariffs have already added trillions to US revenue. I can see the national debt shrinking to nearly nothing, probably by Hallowe'en!
No clothes, and he cheats at golf, and it’s gold spray paint, and No Clothes!
Just for those who may think this is hyperbole: He does cheat at golf. Established fact. Read Rick Reilly’s Commander in Cheat. And any golfer will tell you that anyone who cheats in golf will cheat in life.
Yes, while he has only taken an oath a very few times in his life…maybe he testified sometime under oath but I don’t think so, he has broken his oath. Not counting the wives, but lots of people ignore the till death do us part part.
But they were trying to explain when his caddy dropped the ball exactly where he wanted it, it wasn’t open and above board, it was stealthy! “Oh wow, What a great shot Mr President!”
Fickin’ minions!
I don't quite understand why there are so many people desirous of sucking up to fools. They really seem to take pleasure in demeaning themselves. How were they formed? Was it their upbringing, something learned by the culture?
After WWII, psychologists tried to understand what made people follow Hitler and, by contrast, people in a small town in northwest France took in and hid so many people fleeing right under the Germans' noses.They did it at great peril to their own lives. When asked why they had done it they seemed puzzled by the question and answered, "it's just what you do".
So what makes MAGA people grovel at the feet of the king with no clothes ?
They want to belong, feel dismissed and someone comes along and offers belonging, plus they get to hate everyone else….the elites, smart people who think and act like they are better than them, people who get a free ride. A big part of it is the idea of intrinsic…you work hard but don’t get rich…are you a bad person? Donny-John, the circus barker, is the perfect person…he literally doesn’t give a flying fuck for the MAGA maggots! But he says he loves them! And they believe…Wizard of Oz!
Yes, I get that. But that's the proximate cause(like falling & breaking your neck is the proximate cause of death but a stroke made you fall and is the real reason). A lot of people find themselves in that situation and don't choose that path. Something formed them so that they would react this way
Yes, but I want to know what prepared them to be that way, family upbringing education church? Some factors laid the groundwork. Your description is of what they've become due to that groundwork
Plus his uncle was an MIT professor.
A professor who taught the Unabomber!1!
I hope you're joking
His uncle didn’t teach Ted Kaczynski, Trump just said he did. Like just about everything else Trump says, it wasn’t true.
Do a google of trump talking about a (fantasy) conversation he had with his MIT professor uncle about the Unabomber. Comedy gold.
I left off the "sarcasm" tag.
Is this sarcasm? He took (audited?) a course or two at Wharton, never did anything approaching an attempt at a degree. As to his actual academic record, that's a National Security secret, or something, unlike Obama's record - but of course that's (a) outstanding (b) FAKE NEWS! (which btw is yet another phrase that the Republicans have lifted and mirror-imaged from sane people.
Of course it's sarcasm. If he really did graduate summa cum laude from Wharton, don't you think there would be billboards in every conceivable location at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster and the White House? Or big posters like his Time Man of The Year cover?
He obviously flunked the pop quiz given in the first week of Econ 101; he stopped attending and never went back, probably paid somebody to take it (and most of his other courses) for him.
I feel like Apple has demonstrated how you can screw up making investment decisions. Apple moved production of its iPhone for the US market to India because of the high tarrifs put on China. Now India has high tarrifs.
I was puzzled by articles in the last few days, touting Apple's good sales report as evidence that the company was as strong as ever. These same articles said, right up front, that the increased sales were due to people buying iPhones in an effort to beat the implementation of tariffs. OK.... so what does that do to Apple's sales down the road? This was clearly a blip.
This just in: “After a Weak Jobs Report, Trump Says He’s Firing That Agency’s Commissioner”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/31/business/tariffs-trump-trade
Remarkably gracious of him. According to the Supreme Court, Trump could have had him taken out and shot.
He doesn’t know lucky he is.
Exemptions available for the right "price"
THIS! Is the Art of the Deal no one is talking about. Although, there's voodoo much to talk about we should probably just focus on EPSTEIN. The voters we need have a Love Island attention span.
I wouldn’t worry—Apple’s lobbying power will undoubtedly produce a carve out.
The unfortunate reality is that the folks who put this guy in power are incapable of analysis, which is why the voted for him despite all the analysis - economic and political - which predicted the harm he would do. That being the case, if he blames the bad numbers on the ghost of Jimmy Carter, they will believe him.
A lot of MAGA believe he’s going to bring industry and jobs back.
The other shock might be reversal of tariffs on a sudden basis. I just read the emergency action legislation, or whatever it is, that has been cited by Trump as the legal justification for tariffs. Indeed, as the appellate court noted earlier this week in testimony, there is not one use of the word "tariff" in those laws. As has been discussed in this column, the claim that there is an emergency is warped, and a plain reading of the law indicates clearly that it has no application to a chronic perceived imbalance of trade, especially when applied to Switzerland, Lesotho and Laos. Inevitably, this will hit the Supreme Court, and the Justices are now held to a standard, written in a concurring opinion by Kavanaugh, that the Court can and will respond quickly to issues that realistically have the need for rapid assessment and decision. Of course, by then, Trump may have sealed the fate of those tariffs even more by failing to cleave to the law by reporting to Congress (required at 6 months and then periodically).
The Court maintains that it looks to text, history as key factors in interpretation. An educated normal person will read the law and conclude that Trump's use of tariffs is over-the-top unconstitutional action.
By the way, if ever there were justification for Congress to require sunsetting and rewriting of laws as part of its standards for doing business, the emergency powers act is one. If you read it, whole sections are out of date and therefore lead to confusion. See https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45618 for overview and analysis, and for full text see https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter35&edition=prelim
SCOTUS has already shown it will be more than happy to accommodate Chump, legal precedent, the Constitution and actual reason be damned.
Sadly yes.
If you ask me, the best thing you could do is make it easier to dislodge a current Supreme Court Justice.
If you do that, the current political environment will get rid of the three decent ones we still have and replace them with more Trump toadies.
All this talk of Law
Was ist dass mein Führer?
Or, as Stalin commented about the Vatican, "How many tank divisions do they have?"
Gesetzbrecher Nr1
Can we actually believe numbers coming out of this Administration???
Look at the weather forecast Trump did with the sharpie - now that provides some evidence that the answer is no.
No, we cannot believe numbers coming out of the administration.
Look for a revision of that pathetic jobs report, with several zeros added with a Sharpie...
Trump says he will fire the guy who released the report.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/31/business/tariffs-trump-trade
Trump says he will fire labor statistics chief after weak jobs report”
Will fire, sorry. Will correct.
Yes, meant to copy the news headline and source but likely not really needed at this point
I don't think he's corrupted the BLS yet, but I'm sure if the numbers were off, there would definitely be whistleblowers telling us about it - I'm sure the data scientists at the BLS have no loyalty to the current admin.
Trump just fired the head of the BLS.
Great timing of my comment! Let the whistleblowing begin!
I'm guessing probably not...
The whole trick is that you can believe whatever the hell you want!!! The last thing this regime wants is to be incumbered by facts. Alt world, alt facts, that ole alt time religion, down the rabbit hole, up the spout and into orbit with starlinks own Karoline Leavitt to explain to all.
It seems like tourism-related jobs should be a good place to look for spillover effects. I just came home from a conference in Toronto. There were three (3!) people going through customs.
Saw a PBS report on tourism spots in Vermont. Business was down about 35% everywhere. One ski hill operator tried to call all the people who didn't renew their annual passes. He got through IIRC about 70% of them. They all quoted the 51st state rhetoric.
Yikes. And it's summer tourist season.
International tourism will be down. Period. Self-imposed error, own goal.
Today the Trump 35% tariff on Canada, a former friend and ally of the USA, takes effect. He did it because he says “Canada is mean and nasty” boohoo! There is nobody meaner or nastier than himself, but go ahead blame others. About 53% of Canadian businesses are owned by American companies, so he’s tariffing his own people. He thinks they will pull out and come back to the USA not realizing it takes years to move a business and he will be dead by then. So, they have no incentive to move, but are probably waiting for him to just go away.
What a glorious day it will be when he expires! Could not come soon enough.
Your mouth to God's ears, as my wife is wont to say.
The WSJ had an editorial on aluminum last night. Smelting is very energy consuming and thus companies have been attracted to Canada’s cheap hydropower.
The article points out that it takes several years to build a smelter and if would need new several new nuclear reactors to power them. Is it really worth it?
And yes, the aluminum companies are American.
Many Americans never consider how much money Corporations save by operating in Canada. Corporations in Canada don’t pay for the over the top cost of American employee health insurance. If we could explain to Corporations that it is in their interests to support Universal Healthcare.
I studied industrial development in the 1800s, most specifically in Paterson NJ. For tariffs to succeed they must be relevant to a real industry with real workers and factories. So it was that an 1861 tariff on finished silk cloth led to the growth of US silk mills in the area around Paterson. Weavers moving from cotton - which in Paterson was in decline to silk).
In fact across northen NJ towns with declining iron forges replaced them with silk mills- the iron / steel industry moved to the midwest.
There is simply nothing like this in most US industries or markets. So we won't see new makers of plastic toys emerge as toys are made more expensive. It would take year to develop that industry here. It won't even be easy to open more drug making factories despite tariffs.
There is no genius at work with Trump's tariff rampage nor even an effective plan.
Ty for your industrial history perspective. I wonder if out of all this gloom miasma new solutions might emerge…beginning with cheap disposable plastic toys.
Well if Trump we’re serious he would have manufacturers in. One sector that we lost a lot of is furniture. We have the raw materials and once this provided lots of jobs in the Appalachians. Jobs that paid well for a mostly depressed area. Could we claw this back? But other things… well if the makers are not interested then we won’t get anywhere.
interesting anecdote👍
“Help me, Paul Krugman! You're my only hope!
This August deadline would have been extended again if wasn’t for the Epstein drama. Another diversion, Trump will throw the economy under the bus to save himself. As you pointed out long term capital investments will not happen as long as this yo-yo tariff policy is in place. I’m attending protest marches and writing to my congressional delegation. I cannot sit and watch. Thank you Paul for words of wisdom, so much appreciated!
Can we name a single good thing drumpf has done for this country? He did push the Canadians to elect a liberal party just as they were on the point of electing their own drumpf. And the EU and UK are working more closely than any other time since Brexit. But for us?
...and the Australians also saw the light. Too bad their export Rupert Murdoch has done so much damage.
We are getting a new ballroom for the White House! /s
Trump’s taste is atrocious! Hopefully the White House Historical Association and Curator will ensure any changes are tasteful.
According to Perplexity
"Donald Trump has already added extensive gold décor throughout the White House since returning to office, including gold finishes, gilded ornaments, and gold-trimmed elements in the Oval Office and other areas"
He purportedly brought his, "gold guy" to tart up the WH , the guy who did similar abominations to Mar-a-lago. Poor Marjorie Merriweather Post. She must be rolling over in her grave
Ha! Good one! King Donald wants Versailles.
It’s a perfect storm:
1) tariff uncertainty
2) loss of govt funding
3) corporate pivot to AI, which not only eliminates certain jobs but also makes open jobs more difficult to fill bc AI resumes flood the hiring pipeline
"Study finds AI tools made open source software developers 19 percent slower"
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/study-finds-ai-tools-made-open-source-software-developers-19-percent-slower/
4. POTUS covering up a pedocase
Also: https://open.substack.com/pub/derekthompson/p/young-people-face-a-hiring-crisis?r=4nso&utm_medium=ios
They're Lincoln's fault, freeing those lazy slaves and all that.