I like the quotation marks around "eggs." Quotation marks like that are emblematic of almost everything Trump does and says in public, and are rapidly becoming appropriate for many of our public institutions, as in "Health and Human Services," "The Supreme Court," "the CDC" and "The Congress" as an actual entity. And they could even be used to describe Trump's "tan"!
I don't think Wharton is Ivy League, and in any case he paid someone else to take his SATS and used Daddy's money to overcome any doubts about his admission. Then he dropped out before graduating, as I remember. Trump has always thought he was too 'good' to have to actually "work" (ha ha) at anything. And there's the real thing about too many of the rich: their attitude of entitlement. No joke.
Wharton is part of U Penn, which is in the Ivy League. BTW that conference gets it's name not from the idea of Ivy covered walls, but from the fact that it was originally formed by 4 schools, and so was known as the IV League. "IV" =4 get it?
Same as how a ten-dollar bill became known as a "sawbuck". A sawbuck is an old device made of two 2x4s nailed together in the shape of an "X". The idea is you rest the log you're sawing in the junction of the X and that keeps it stable for the saw. (Nowadays we usually use sawhorses.)
Anyway, "X" is the Roman numeral for "10", so you get sawbuck --> X --> ten --> $10 bill, and eventually "sawbuck = $10 bill."
Penn is one of the Ivies. Wharton is the Business School, but undergraduates don’t usually claim to have “attended Wharton”. Especially a two year transfer arranged by Daddy.
Parents with incorrigible (rude, defiant, crude, mean, lazy) sons still send them to military schools. I think young Trump may have actually learned something there--his love for gold gew gaws and parades.
And then he opened Trump university which had a class action lawsuit brought against it for fraud. A lawsuit that Pam Bondi made go away by the way. He's a crook-there's no other way to fry that "egg". 😆
One of his Profs called him "the dumbest goddamn student I ever had". He is not bright (I am being charitable) and he doesn't know anything. He has always paid for other people to do the hard stuff for him. Is it any wonder that given great power, he uses it to burn stuff down?
and some of his rich fans threatened to stop donating to some of the schools if they released his grades. So it's not just Trump, but his accomplices too.
And yet he has this army of adoring fans. There were loads of them this morning at the WSJ, in article about tariffs on China.
They’re 100% loyal: talking about “cheap Chinese trinkets” that no one needs. They’re even saying it will benefit the environment! (The same folks who rail against environmentalists on other occasions).
They’d feel that way about ANY Republican leader—at least relative to any Democratic one. MAGA (except in name) existed before Trump and will exist after. 45% of Americans will never vote for any Democrat no matter how much Trump or any other Republicans screw them over. It’s how the 6% or so of “swing voters” react that matters. They can make all the difference, as the several 21st-century elections prove.
I wonder if he paid the people who wrote his papers? He's stiffed contractors of every kind throught his so-called business life (I skipped the scare quotes).
I think he is dyslexic among other things. He can’t read or speak coherently. Additionally he is narcissistic with delusions of grandeur and may actually be schizophrenic. That’s my medical opinion without examining him personally.
He is a menu of DSM Personality Disorders - kind of a diorama of many of them... Narcissistic, Paranoid, Antisocial, and some Obsessive-Compulsive. When you layer those on top of a very low IQ and extreme propagandizability (likely very hypnotizable). He shouldn't be organizing lunch, let alone his own regime.
Being dyslexic does not make you necessarily unable to read or function at a very high level. Many of my friends as well as myself have dyslexia and are known widely for their mechanical and creative skills. Reading does not come easily but our comprehension is excellent. Trump, on the other hand, has always expected to have everything handed to him and learned early that tantrums and bullying get him what he wants. He is evil but definitely not stupid.
I understand and didn’t mean to indicate that. But he does seem to have trouble with reading and speaking or at least more now than he did when young. I’m not an expert on dyslexia but I’m sure most people with it do as well as anyone else. Trump likely never cared to deal with it because he is intellectually lazy and stubborn. He was given breaks all the time, too.
A perfect opportunity for those who are just as greedy and amoral as he is to take the reins of power, as he is overtly ignorant and fairly low IQ. Trump, the perfect tool: just add money, wind him up, and watch him weaken the country you want to take over.
She told people he had paid someone to take the SATs for him. The proof that he was a terrible student is his threat to sue Penn if anyone got a copy of his transcript.
Trump clearly doesn’t know anything about punctuation either, although an ad agency rep serving a company I was working for back in the 80’s told me, when we questioned the practice, that they used quotes to emphasize certain words. We put a stop to that since it looked ridiculous in print - which it was.
Well, his "movement" was nurtured and developed through a steady diet of Fox "News". So there is a certain coherence there. Random, inexplicable quotation marks and capitalizations are hallmarks of the Trumpian style guide.
There will be NO actual deals, because a deal is something that happens when both sides have some level of trust that what has been agreed to will be done. Trump long ago lost the trust of savvy contractors who saw their fellows not being paid, and savvy investors who saw their peers lose in his bankruptcies, and now the whole world has seen the United States acquiesce in the abandonment of long-established trade agreements and many other agreements (the really smart people also notice the violation of domestic laws, it's all of a piece). Anything Trump announces as a "deal" will actually be nothing but a temporary stand-off involving more threats than promises.
Yes, "deals" are the only commercial activity the orange wack job ever participated in and those in turn "artfully" and with mixed results. So with "deals", his people have found him a happy place to perform for the cameras.
And the true horror is that his invincible ignorance precludes his ability to develop and/or manage any informed policy that addresses the real world needs in our economic or political life. It'd be way beyond his pay grade. This is an enormous opportunity cost for all of us.
So in the end what we see is what we get; a senile conman filling in his dotage days blathering on about outwitting dishonest outsiders with his sublime deal making skills.
When the history of this is written, it'll be tagged the bullshit years.
Just a small but relevant point here: It is difficult to have a level playing field when our companies must pay about $1000/month per worker for health benefits while other countries provide health care as a public benefit. An Airbus jet price tag has no health care costs built in (but does have VAT at several manufacturing stages). Our Boeing jet price tag has the health care costs of the employees and their families included in it. This level of nuance is not making it into mainstream discussions of the matter, and we should be using this controversy to promote Medicare for all maybe.
The taxes built in along the way in other countries ARE, in significant part, healthcare costs. The problem isn't that Amercian workers are paid for something other worker aren't. All of the evidence suggests that the social safety network compensation received by workers in other developed nations are superior in quality (if not cost) to those received by US workers. The problem is that something like a third of every dollar we pay for US worker's healthcare (and frankly many other benefits) is going into administrative expenses and insurance company profits, whereas in sane countries the rate is something like 4% or even less. If you think about it, the US is seriously subsidizing pretty much every single thing made here for export, except the subsidy isn't directly to the producer, it is to the producers' insurance companies.
VAT is a very good tax -- neither a barrier to trade nor a subsidy to exports, as often claimed by Trump and the band of fools on his economic team. VAT at the manufacturing stages of an Airbus jet is rebated when Airbus submits its VAT collected on final sales -- similar to, but a better system, US state and local retail sales tax (RST) exemption on many business inputs purchased by Boeing in Washington. RST exemption on Boeing's sales either exported or sold in US. Long-winded answer saying VAT is not a factor in trade other than making European businesses slightly more efficient in that respect than US because US RST system does not work quite as well trying to achieve same result.
I like to point out that how we pay for health care in America amounts to a VAT—every good and service you purchase in America includes someone else’s health care costs. Shhh, don’t tell Republicans. ;)
In many European countries, employee healthcare (and disability, pensions, for that matter) are paid for by both employers (employers tax) and employees (income tax). Following your logic, Airbus would be at a cost disadvantage here compared to Boeing.
US annual healthcare costs at USD 12K per capita are the highest in the world. Compared this to, say, the EU at USD 4K. So costs are a factor.
Yet life expectancy in the US is 78.4 years, in the EU 82.5 years. Similarly, average height in the US has recently shown a decline, another indication that general health is declining.
Michael Moore's movie 'Sicko' in 2007 also pointed this out. And he made clear that healthcare is ultimately a social economic choice. The US ran with the 'social' bit, the EU sees it as simple economics.
First, the US doesn't have a health care system - we have a sick care system, by which I mean that part of our higher costs comes from a focus on treatment rather than prevention/cure/lifestyle issues, which also explains some the life expectancy difference. Second, while I think you're right about the decline in height, that one is muddy. I'd love to see it if you have something conclusively factoring out intervening variables like demographic changes and immigration, but I haven't seen that data. Most importantly, though, the role of rent seeking in the US higher prices is clear.
Average height, including across generations, is used as a proxy to measure health and welfare. Height is influenced by factors such as nutrition, illnesses and general living conditions.
Average height of the US population has started to show a declining trend, a surprising trend for a developed country. Causes are not yet known. Some point to high immigration numbers from countries with a lower average height. Another reason could be a preference for ultra-processed food (“overfed and undernourished”). A declining vaccination rate could also have an impact. Until now speculation is still out, future research may provide some of the answers.
well, it was at one time - say after the Depression ... and when immigrants from countries where people were shorter came to the States and ate an American diet and grew... But not necessarily true any more. Depends on the makeup of the population.
The chocolate ration will be doubled every two weeks, going from 28 grams to 14 grams. Likewise, the Victory Gin ration will also be doubled from its present 6 ounce to 4.
And you will like it. Everyone will be saying they've never seen rations so big!
Just like they did in Animal Farm. And then Squealer (Karoline Leavitt) will start screaming "You don't want the humans (the libs) to come back do you?"
That is a great question. Unfortunately, the data will not be officially published by the relevent USG agencies, or potentially even available via FOIA within a timeframe that'll make it useful, but I think it's very likely it'll still exist for one single reason: Profit.
The Trump Crime Family has already greatly enriched itself by selling access to Lord Cheeto. I would not at all put it past them to have already planned to "monetize" data collected by the USG. DOGE and his Dunning-Kruger Kids are already aggregating data about Americans into a single database. It wouldn't necessarily take much more effort to include accurate economic data as part of that database, and then sell access to all of it to the 1%. Access to accurate economic data and our PII would allow the 1% of the 1% to be able to make better investment decisions, and thus more $, than even other mega-rich people who refuse to participate in the rampant graft.
There's 11 lawsuits currently trying to stop the current DOGE Muskovites from combining our PII into a single database, (which undoubtedly will eventually be called "A Big Beautiful Database") but our justice system may not be able to move fast enough to stop this illegal madness before it's operational.
If anyone does find out how to get the real economic data I hope they will let us know, so we can use that method to get real data on food safety, infectious diseases, etc.
It may not even be necessary for USG employees to put their jobs at risk by leaking data, because most of the Trump installed political appointees are morons who don't understand how *anything* works, and they're too busy lying to the MAGA masses on Fox "News" to pay attention until after something happens.
For example, a few days ago, DNI Tulsi Gabbard claimed Maduro's government in Venezuela controls TdA and has used it to destabilize the US (and other countries.) Gabbard is a complete whack job, but she's presumably able to read (although, she probably does need her staff to use crayons and other arts & crafts to explain what she's reading.) Well before Gabbard's interview, the intel community produced a report that concluded Maduro's government not only doesn't have command and control of TdA, Venezuelan law enforcement and their military have gotten into some violent confrontations with the gang.
Gabbard got away with her lies for about a day before a properly, legally, declassified version of the IC report was released by the DNI FOIA office. Despite what Trump thinks, declassification of a document in preparation for a public release *doesn't* happen overnight, especially when there were multiple agencies involved in the production of the document. A document that requires review by the CIA and multiple other agencies with intel gathering capability can take weeks, months or even years to be released in response to a FOIA request. The report being released so quickly wasn't a leak or a "setup" of Gabbard by the "Deep State." Gabbard's just so clueless she didn't even know the declassification and public release process was well underway.
Yes, there's chaos, insanity, and lots of frustration and pain in the federal workforce right now. But those employees who are still being allowed to come to work and do their job are still doing it to the best of their ability in compliance with federal law and legal rules & regulations...most of which proceed Trump 1.0 and he can't (yet) do anything about. That includes processing FOIA requests. Trump and his minions will likely try to minimize Americans ability to get accurate information through the FOIA process by cutting funding/firing FOIA experts at agencies, but IMO at most, if not all agencies, other employees will step up and take on additional responsibilities to make sure the work gets done. It just may get done a little slower than ever before. (Which is the exact opposite of "efficient" but we all know the creation of DOGE was never actually about making the federal government more efficient and helpful to the American people.)
Trump has already revealed the true nature of his tariffs. He wants to create an "External Revenue Service" and eliminate the income tax altogether. That means the burden of supporting the government will fall on consumers through higher sales taxes (aka tariffs). This is a purely regressive tax structure. The rich will pay a much smaller share of their wealth under this scheme. It has long been a wet dream of the wealthy.
Yes. Trump does indeed *want* to replace the income tax with tariffs. But there is flatly zero way , and I mean ZERO way, this is remotely feasible. The numbers aren't even close to penciling out for such a shift.
He is a moron-crank on all things related to economic policy.
Their math makes sense to them... but in reality, reducing imports by raising tariffs makes it even harder to generate the funds to replace income tax (which is reduced by breaks for the rich and firing workers). The end result of all of it is a lot smaller budget to run the government, which is providing less and less value (as they intended).
exactly. For him, America was great under President McKinley (d. 1901) - lots of tariffs, no income tax - and a handful of robber barons and a lot of people in misery. What's not to like?
As a stupid German I don't understand the theory that the US trade deficit is due to the attractiveness of the US as an investment location! Isn't the reason for the trade deficit rather the fact that the US, in satisfying its excessive demand for goods, takes advantage of lower wages in other countries to get these goods much cheaper than if they were made in the US? Ultimately, both American consumers and companies exploit poor foreign workers. What's particularly piquant is that it's largely American corporations that are driving up the trade deficit by, for example, manufacturing smartphones, sneakers and clothing in low-wage countries, importing them into the US and selling them here at huge profits, driving up GDP significantly. Perhaps journalists should hold this up to Donny 2 Dolls when he once again presents his narrative of the poor Americans who have been ripped off.
The EU has a trade surplus with the US. The excess money in the EU is then invested in the US because it produces a higher yield in the US (the US is more attractive).
The trade deficit of the US is not the result of the attractiveness of the US economy, but rather, the investment surplus as a result of the attractiveness of the US economy ensures that the dollar won't drop against the Euro as a result of the trade deficit.
At least, all that used to be the case until Caving Don started his tariff war...
In my opinion that doesn't really explain the trade surplus of Germany.
In my opinion, the reasons for this trade surplus are very complex. For example, Germany's surplus in terms of trade in passenger cars is mainly due to the fact that Germany built vehicles in the past for which there was a demand in the USA due to various circumstances that I won't go into here. In contrast, there was hardly any interest in Germany and the entire EU in American vehicles other than TESLAS because these vehicles are not considered attractive for many reasons. The often high fuel consumption is just one of them. In addition, the EU actually imposes 10% tariffs on passenger cars other than pickups, which were significantly higher than the American tariffs before Trump. Incidentally, the ratio of tariffs between the USA and the EU was reversed for pickups even before Trump. One reason for the relative competitiveness of German cars was the fact that German austerity policies managed to keep wages in Germany rising only very moderately and that wage growth lagged well behind productivity growth. Nevertheless, due to government measures and other circumstances, the German automotive industry has relocated a not inconsiderable proportion of its production to the USA. The associated investments have even ensured that the increase in the trade deficit has been curbed.
On the other hand, TESLA, also attracted by German subsidies, has had a production facility built and put into operation in Germany, which in turn is unlikely to have helped reduce the US trade deficit.
And if German companies and investors prefer to invest their money in the American investment market rather than in increasing the productivity of their own companies, as is actually happening in some cases, this is more likely to lead to a decline in German competitiveness on the global markets. This also has a dampening effect on the German trade surplus.
"In my opinion that doesn't really explain the trade surplus of Germany."
What explains Germany's trade surplus - the US wants (needs) more goods from Germany than Germany wants (needs) from the US.
The reason why this trade deficit doesn't affect the value of the Dollar is - Germany re-invests the trade surplus in the US.
The sum of Accounting Identities is always zero, meaning, if Germany would not invest the surplus in the US, the dollar would drop in value so that the US would sell more goods to Germany, and Germany would sell less goods to the US, thus eliminating the trade deficit.
Money will not flow in one direction indefinitely.
This is obviously a very crude simplification, but it does in essence explain the correlation between trade deficits, investment surpluses and relative currency values...
Another German here, but here’s my understanding: If a lot of people want to invest in the US (this was true in the past) and people in the US have at least some degree of interest in buying things that are offered for sale outside the US (regardless of whether it’s transportable goods that would be imported into the US or e.g. real estate outside the US), what will happen is that the people who want to invest in the US will be looking to sell money of their currencies for US dollars, while the US people who are interested in buying things that are outside the US will be looking to buy foreign currencies for US dollars. For reasons of arithmetic, the number of US dollars that is sold for foreign currencies is always equal to the number of US dollars that is (by others) bought for foreign currencies. The market mechanism that makes this balance out is the exchange rate and the resulting decisions. If the US becomes less attractive for investment, the value of the dollar falls in terms of foreign currencies, so that imported goods become more expensive in terms of US dollars until they are (in terms of US dollars) so expensive that the total amount of US dollars that is sold for foreign currencies is again equal to the number of US dollars that is (by others, including in particular investors) bought for foreign currencies.
But what if the US becomes so unattractive for investment that so many investors want to take their investments out that there is a net capital outflow from terminated investments exceeding the value of all goods and services produced in the US that are suitable for exporting and that someone somewhere is interested at all in buying? That’s when things would get really painful not only in the US, but really for financial institutions worldwide, as at that point adjustment cannot happen anymore just through adjustments of the exchange rate. Not only would US imports drop to close to zero because they’d be unaffordably expensive, but in addition interests rates in the US would have to rise sharply until the they are so high that investment in the US thereby become attractive enough again to balance the equation. Sharply rising interest rates mean that that the book value of fixed-rate investments held by US banks declines sharply, probably resulting in a flood of bank runs and bankruptcies of financial institutions in the US, resulting through contagion in a severe global financial crisis.
And factor in the distaste in Europe and Canada for buying American stuff. Or visiting the US as well as investing in the US service economy by sending their students here. Add to that Chinese and Latin America distrust of visiting or studying in the US. It’s not just an upcoming cratering of global trade in stuff (empty shelves, expensive goods) but in services or intangibles that come with our now-cratering reputation for security and quality.
Indeed, declining interest in US exports, some aspects of which you mention, is certainly important, especially in the long run. One aspect of this which many analyses are overlooking is the very significant value of US exports of “intellectual property” licensing as well as online services. That could IMO easily collapse when trust in the US deteriorates. (Sales to consumers all involve personal data of consumers in regard to which the US should now be regarded as very untrustworthy. Most sales to businesses involve some kind of economic dependency in regard to which the US should now be regarded as very untrustworthy.)
Nevertheless I still see the biggest risk that is contained in the current situation in the possibility of a bank run type scenario in which foreign investors try to pull their capital out of the US investment market, with in this scenario a rapid deterioration of the exchange value of the US dollar (motivating ever more foreign investors to liquidate their US assets before the value of the dollar falls even more) and a rapid rise of interest rates in the US (causing a crisis or even collapse of the financial system via the mechanism described above).
Don't forget the role of the US dollar as an international reserve currency. When the orange menace succeeds in knocking the dollar off that pedestal, it will put the foot on the accelerator of the process you have described here.
"Trump wants to reduce the U.S. trade deficit; he also wants to attract more foreign investment into the United States. But he can’t, as a matter of sheer accounting..."
Thank you for your hints! But I think the mentioned equation doesn't clarify the problem.
This equation is often misunderstood: The balance of payments is a flow account over a period of time, not a balance sheet, and it is always balanced ex post because every current account entry has a mirror entry in the capital account.
If a country A exports goods worth €100 to Country B the receivable is recorded as a capital export in A’s capital account.
Therefore, in my opinion, the equation does nothing to answer the question of why and to what extent foreign investment in the US is the cause of the trade deficit.
Basically, we’re ripping ourselves off! They few in America—not the foreigners abroad— are exploiting the many here, as our own businesses create our trade deficit. Somebody tell Dunderhead Donny about this!
The few are ripping off the majority of Americans not by creating a trade deficit, but by their greed to make more and more profits through businesses that hardly anyone really needed and giving back as little of it as possible via taxes to the general public that makes their profits possible in the first place, as was the case in the truly golden years of the USA after the Second World War.
Today, little girls are being taken to task by one of the world's biggest sociopaths for not being satisfied with two golf courses of his own but preferring to own 30 or more.
Nobody with a brain gets excited when Trump speaks, most get a splitting headache and moan “make it stop”. To the simpletons who vote and support the GOP, remember it’s more than just one man, everything has a simple answer. Simple people like simple answers, teenage pregnancy? Stop teach sex education! Feeling weak and threatened by the number of non-white people at the grocery store? Deport them! Trump and the GOP are using tariffs and trade wars as their “Lost Cause”.
Dr Krugman: you asked what the orange rapist will do after monday's consumer prices report comes out, showing that things are just as terrible as we've all been telling him? he will do what he always does when confronted by the reality of his own incompetence: blame biden.
speaking of the orange rapist, he mentioned in his tweet (which you repost in your message) that "tariff money is pouring into the USA" which makes me wonder if these funds are actually crypto pouring into agent orange's crypto wallet, but he's too stupid to realize this isn't tariff money?
Nothing is EVER Donnie’s fault, is it? He doesn’t even try to be subtle about his refusal to take responsibility for anything bad. A CLEVER narcissist would try to hide his blame-everyone-else-ness with fancy talk. But I guess Donny’s not Dubya. Dubya only pretended to be dumb; DJT only pretends to be smart!
I wonder if Trump attended even one of his economics classes in college? Those in charge of the Wharton undergrad program must cringe every time he speaks about business!
Early on, in 2015 or 2016, he claimed to have graduated from Wharton first in his class, but also threatened to sue the school if they released his transcripts. Uh huh...
And unfortunately for the Donny Two Scoops several of his classmates have published the 1968 Penn commencement program online. As is typical it lists the honor students in order Summa, Magna etc and then the non-honor students that are graduating. DJT is listed with the latter group so we can safely put the "top of the class" BS to bed.
Yes, prices are going up, and inexpensive toys & goods will be in short supply. However, the really nasty clip of fecal matter hitting the HVAC is the flight of Capital from the previously perceived safe haven of a stable US investment ecology. With no-one being able to predict what the Republicans will do, the Capital has started to run away.
The older of us may recall watching the Reagan tax cuts for the Rich (predicted ably, and predicted) flow out of the US towards emerging markets, then paying much more robust returns. Watch the Trump tax cuts for the Rich go the same way, this time due to fear of Trump chaos.
Smoke and mirrors works in financial markets fir only a little while, then real problems surface. The question is, will they surface in time for the mid terms elections. Nothing will save us (all of us, everywhere) from the incoming catastrophic climate change impacts, but the death of the contemporary Republican/MAGA party as a national political power in the US, could allow us to collaborate with the rest of the world towards mitigating the worst of it.
You mean another day of the liar in chief bullshitting the rest of us, while state propaganda fox News will perpetuate even further the exploitation of the gullible dopes of maga.
I believe the quotations around eggs signifies Trump's awareness that eggs are, in fact, unborn chickens, and arguably deserve the same protections given to hatchlings. /s
I like the quotation marks around "eggs." Quotation marks like that are emblematic of almost everything Trump does and says in public, and are rapidly becoming appropriate for many of our public institutions, as in "Health and Human Services," "The Supreme Court," "the CDC" and "The Congress" as an actual entity. And they could even be used to describe Trump's "tan"!
Trump's '' Presidency''
That's the best one of all.👍
No, unfortuanately. Trump's presidency is very, very and horribly real.
And to think he is the product of an Ivy League education! That’s what affirmative action for rich kids gets us.
I don't think Wharton is Ivy League, and in any case he paid someone else to take his SATS and used Daddy's money to overcome any doubts about his admission. Then he dropped out before graduating, as I remember. Trump has always thought he was too 'good' to have to actually "work" (ha ha) at anything. And there's the real thing about too many of the rich: their attitude of entitlement. No joke.
Actually it is but he was an ungrad and usually people are thinking of the MBA when they hear Wharton
And besides, he still won't release his transcript. I wonder why?🤔
haha
An “ungrad” is someone who did not graduate. Trump is an “ungrad” of Wharton, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and many more.
Wharton is part of U Penn, which is in the Ivy League. BTW that conference gets it's name not from the idea of Ivy covered walls, but from the fact that it was originally formed by 4 schools, and so was known as the IV League. "IV" =4 get it?
Same as how a ten-dollar bill became known as a "sawbuck". A sawbuck is an old device made of two 2x4s nailed together in the shape of an "X". The idea is you rest the log you're sawing in the junction of the X and that keeps it stable for the saw. (Nowadays we usually use sawhorses.)
Anyway, "X" is the Roman numeral for "10", so you get sawbuck --> X --> ten --> $10 bill, and eventually "sawbuck = $10 bill."
No, we don't use horses for sawing logs - the sawbuck is still the way to go for those. Sawhorses are used for dimensional lumber.
Explain that to the deranged orange lunatic and watch him go from orange to red, way way beyond his mental capacity!
Penn is one of the Ivies. Wharton is the Business School, but undergraduates don’t usually claim to have “attended Wharton”. Especially a two year transfer arranged by Daddy.
That was after he flunked out of high school and was sent to a military school to complete high school
Parents with incorrigible (rude, defiant, crude, mean, lazy) sons still send them to military schools. I think young Trump may have actually learned something there--his love for gold gew gaws and parades.
And then he opened Trump university which had a class action lawsuit brought against it for fraud. A lawsuit that Pam Bondi made go away by the way. He's a crook-there's no other way to fry that "egg". 😆
One of his Profs called him "the dumbest goddamn student I ever had". He is not bright (I am being charitable) and he doesn't know anything. He has always paid for other people to do the hard stuff for him. Is it any wonder that given great power, he uses it to burn stuff down?
He has issued threats if they ever release his grades.
I don't recall ever meeting a schoolyard bully who was a good student or particularly bright...
Why am I not surprised?
Where's Anonymous when you need it?
and some of his rich fans threatened to stop donating to some of the schools if they released his grades. So it's not just Trump, but his accomplices too.
I assume he had someone write papers for him as well. He has been a fraud his whole life.
And yet he has this army of adoring fans. There were loads of them this morning at the WSJ, in article about tariffs on China.
They’re 100% loyal: talking about “cheap Chinese trinkets” that no one needs. They’re even saying it will benefit the environment! (The same folks who rail against environmentalists on other occasions).
Trump can do no wrong for this crowd.
They’d feel that way about ANY Republican leader—at least relative to any Democratic one. MAGA (except in name) existed before Trump and will exist after. 45% of Americans will never vote for any Democrat no matter how much Trump or any other Republicans screw them over. It’s how the 6% or so of “swing voters” react that matters. They can make all the difference, as the several 21st-century elections prove.
I wonder if he paid the people who wrote his papers? He's stiffed contractors of every kind throught his so-called business life (I skipped the scare quotes).
Well, it's been rare when someone managed to stop his fraud.
I think he is dyslexic among other things. He can’t read or speak coherently. Additionally he is narcissistic with delusions of grandeur and may actually be schizophrenic. That’s my medical opinion without examining him personally.
He is a menu of DSM Personality Disorders - kind of a diorama of many of them... Narcissistic, Paranoid, Antisocial, and some Obsessive-Compulsive. When you layer those on top of a very low IQ and extreme propagandizability (likely very hypnotizable). He shouldn't be organizing lunch, let alone his own regime.
The #DonnieDioramaOfDisorders, along with #Propagandizability. Hashtags of the regime.
Being dyslexic does not make you necessarily unable to read or function at a very high level. Many of my friends as well as myself have dyslexia and are known widely for their mechanical and creative skills. Reading does not come easily but our comprehension is excellent. Trump, on the other hand, has always expected to have everything handed to him and learned early that tantrums and bullying get him what he wants. He is evil but definitely not stupid.
I understand and didn’t mean to indicate that. But he does seem to have trouble with reading and speaking or at least more now than he did when young. I’m not an expert on dyslexia but I’m sure most people with it do as well as anyone else. Trump likely never cared to deal with it because he is intellectually lazy and stubborn. He was given breaks all the time, too.
More likely dementia than dyslexia.
That Pope picture had me thinking megalomania.
Yes. Delusions of grandeur and megalomania. Same thing
A perfect opportunity for those who are just as greedy and amoral as he is to take the reins of power, as he is overtly ignorant and fairly low IQ. Trump, the perfect tool: just add money, wind him up, and watch him weaken the country you want to take over.
My husband who went to Penn responded, "Did anyone actually see him in class?"
The Mike Ross of Penn/Wharton
He cheats. He didn't just take up that habit.
"education"
Only two years at Penn; first two college years at Fordham, which he never mentions.
How would Trump know about punctuation? His big sister Marianne did his homework for him.
She told people he had paid someone to take the SATs for him. The proof that he was a terrible student is his threat to sue Penn if anyone got a copy of his transcript.
It would be a shame if the DOGE boys got access to Penn's data and accidentally leaked his grades.
Hardly a “shame”
Did Trump himself ever buy something called “eggs”?
Once he heard where they came from, he was "Ewww..."
full of germs
Cloacula...? What...???
I think he's always had someone else buy everything for him.
No chance.
The quotation marks are supposed to indicate that Orangeman is putting emphasis here while simultaneously making his famous accordion playing routine
And as Michael Cohen said when Trump starts the accordion hands thing you know he's lying.
And when he doesn't start the accordion hands thing....he's lying.
If he's talking, he's lying.
How did we know when Nixon was lying?
His mouth was moving.
Probably an old joke at the time, but I was young then.
"I am not a crook"
Trump clearly doesn’t know anything about punctuation either, although an ad agency rep serving a company I was working for back in the 80’s told me, when we questioned the practice, that they used quotes to emphasize certain words. We put a stop to that since it looked ridiculous in print - which it was.
Two asterisks are the equivalent of italics... .
These were quote marks, not asterisks.
I know.
"I like the quotation marks around "eggs."
He is about to release all the files involving the conspiracy to hide the fact that birds aren't real.
And "truth" as regularly alleged by the "president" every time he speaks and writes on "truth social".
Four sayings by Trump to take with BIIIIG grain of salt:
>>>1. Nobody knew that … (meaning: HE didn’t know. He can’t fathom someone else knowing something he didn’t.)
>>>2. *Believe* ME, … (meaning: Who’s he trying to convince, us or himself? Don’t believe him.)
>>>3. Nobody (does something) more than I! (meaning: Nobody does it LESS than him. I think he doth protest too much.)
>>>4. People are saying… (meaning: HE’s saying, or a dubious source is. He pretends it’s common knowledge.)
There you have it. The 4 corners of Trump double-speak.
More like Lies Anti-Social
Well, his "movement" was nurtured and developed through a steady diet of Fox "News". So there is a certain coherence there. Random, inexplicable quotation marks and capitalizations are hallmarks of the Trumpian style guide.
So very true.
Of course he’ll pretend, everything he’s done is largely performative…except the tariffs. But the deals will surely be all performance, no substance.
There will be NO actual deals, because a deal is something that happens when both sides have some level of trust that what has been agreed to will be done. Trump long ago lost the trust of savvy contractors who saw their fellows not being paid, and savvy investors who saw their peers lose in his bankruptcies, and now the whole world has seen the United States acquiesce in the abandonment of long-established trade agreements and many other agreements (the really smart people also notice the violation of domestic laws, it's all of a piece). Anything Trump announces as a "deal" will actually be nothing but a temporary stand-off involving more threats than promises.
Yes, "deals" are the only commercial activity the orange wack job ever participated in and those in turn "artfully" and with mixed results. So with "deals", his people have found him a happy place to perform for the cameras.
And the true horror is that his invincible ignorance precludes his ability to develop and/or manage any informed policy that addresses the real world needs in our economic or political life. It'd be way beyond his pay grade. This is an enormous opportunity cost for all of us.
So in the end what we see is what we get; a senile conman filling in his dotage days blathering on about outwitting dishonest outsiders with his sublime deal making skills.
When the history of this is written, it'll be tagged the bullshit years.
All the while, slouching toward authoritarian rule and pogroms.
Just a small but relevant point here: It is difficult to have a level playing field when our companies must pay about $1000/month per worker for health benefits while other countries provide health care as a public benefit. An Airbus jet price tag has no health care costs built in (but does have VAT at several manufacturing stages). Our Boeing jet price tag has the health care costs of the employees and their families included in it. This level of nuance is not making it into mainstream discussions of the matter, and we should be using this controversy to promote Medicare for all maybe.
The taxes built in along the way in other countries ARE, in significant part, healthcare costs. The problem isn't that Amercian workers are paid for something other worker aren't. All of the evidence suggests that the social safety network compensation received by workers in other developed nations are superior in quality (if not cost) to those received by US workers. The problem is that something like a third of every dollar we pay for US worker's healthcare (and frankly many other benefits) is going into administrative expenses and insurance company profits, whereas in sane countries the rate is something like 4% or even less. If you think about it, the US is seriously subsidizing pretty much every single thing made here for export, except the subsidy isn't directly to the producer, it is to the producers' insurance companies.
VAT is a very good tax -- neither a barrier to trade nor a subsidy to exports, as often claimed by Trump and the band of fools on his economic team. VAT at the manufacturing stages of an Airbus jet is rebated when Airbus submits its VAT collected on final sales -- similar to, but a better system, US state and local retail sales tax (RST) exemption on many business inputs purchased by Boeing in Washington. RST exemption on Boeing's sales either exported or sold in US. Long-winded answer saying VAT is not a factor in trade other than making European businesses slightly more efficient in that respect than US because US RST system does not work quite as well trying to achieve same result.
I like to point out that how we pay for health care in America amounts to a VAT—every good and service you purchase in America includes someone else’s health care costs. Shhh, don’t tell Republicans. ;)
This should be screamed from the rooftops!
In many European countries, employee healthcare (and disability, pensions, for that matter) are paid for by both employers (employers tax) and employees (income tax). Following your logic, Airbus would be at a cost disadvantage here compared to Boeing.
Except the US pays double or more for those benefits compared with other developed nations because here it is privatized.
US annual healthcare costs at USD 12K per capita are the highest in the world. Compared this to, say, the EU at USD 4K. So costs are a factor.
Yet life expectancy in the US is 78.4 years, in the EU 82.5 years. Similarly, average height in the US has recently shown a decline, another indication that general health is declining.
Michael Moore's movie 'Sicko' in 2007 also pointed this out. And he made clear that healthcare is ultimately a social economic choice. The US ran with the 'social' bit, the EU sees it as simple economics.
First, the US doesn't have a health care system - we have a sick care system, by which I mean that part of our higher costs comes from a focus on treatment rather than prevention/cure/lifestyle issues, which also explains some the life expectancy difference. Second, while I think you're right about the decline in height, that one is muddy. I'd love to see it if you have something conclusively factoring out intervening variables like demographic changes and immigration, but I haven't seen that data. Most importantly, though, the role of rent seeking in the US higher prices is clear.
Average height, including across generations, is used as a proxy to measure health and welfare. Height is influenced by factors such as nutrition, illnesses and general living conditions.
Average height of the US population has started to show a declining trend, a surprising trend for a developed country. Causes are not yet known. Some point to high immigration numbers from countries with a lower average height. Another reason could be a preference for ultra-processed food (“overfed and undernourished”). A declining vaccination rate could also have an impact. Until now speculation is still out, future research may provide some of the answers.
well, it was at one time - say after the Depression ... and when immigrants from countries where people were shorter came to the States and ate an American diet and grew... But not necessarily true any more. Depends on the makeup of the population.
so, start providing healthcare to workers AND all, as a public good, and levelise the field!
The RoW isn't going to adopt the crap US system - if you want to complete, sort out your own back yard.
Medicaid for all. It's the better program.
There’s a very good chance that he and his minions will soon begin trying to corrupt the economic data."
This is a given. I have expected this from the beginning. How can we get the real data once the fudging of the data begins?
The chocolate ration will be doubled every two weeks, going from 28 grams to 14 grams. Likewise, the Victory Gin ration will also be doubled from its present 6 ounce to 4.
And you will like it. Everyone will be saying they've never seen rations so big!
And if you follow the current education direction in Oklahoma, this math will make sense.
Just like they did in Animal Farm. And then Squealer (Karoline Leavitt) will start screaming "You don't want the humans (the libs) to come back do you?"
That is a great question. Unfortunately, the data will not be officially published by the relevent USG agencies, or potentially even available via FOIA within a timeframe that'll make it useful, but I think it's very likely it'll still exist for one single reason: Profit.
The Trump Crime Family has already greatly enriched itself by selling access to Lord Cheeto. I would not at all put it past them to have already planned to "monetize" data collected by the USG. DOGE and his Dunning-Kruger Kids are already aggregating data about Americans into a single database. It wouldn't necessarily take much more effort to include accurate economic data as part of that database, and then sell access to all of it to the 1%. Access to accurate economic data and our PII would allow the 1% of the 1% to be able to make better investment decisions, and thus more $, than even other mega-rich people who refuse to participate in the rampant graft.
There's 11 lawsuits currently trying to stop the current DOGE Muskovites from combining our PII into a single database, (which undoubtedly will eventually be called "A Big Beautiful Database") but our justice system may not be able to move fast enough to stop this illegal madness before it's operational.
If anyone does find out how to get the real economic data I hope they will let us know, so we can use that method to get real data on food safety, infectious diseases, etc.
Hopefully some of the folks that know will "leak" it.
It may not even be necessary for USG employees to put their jobs at risk by leaking data, because most of the Trump installed political appointees are morons who don't understand how *anything* works, and they're too busy lying to the MAGA masses on Fox "News" to pay attention until after something happens.
For example, a few days ago, DNI Tulsi Gabbard claimed Maduro's government in Venezuela controls TdA and has used it to destabilize the US (and other countries.) Gabbard is a complete whack job, but she's presumably able to read (although, she probably does need her staff to use crayons and other arts & crafts to explain what she's reading.) Well before Gabbard's interview, the intel community produced a report that concluded Maduro's government not only doesn't have command and control of TdA, Venezuelan law enforcement and their military have gotten into some violent confrontations with the gang.
Gabbard got away with her lies for about a day before a properly, legally, declassified version of the IC report was released by the DNI FOIA office. Despite what Trump thinks, declassification of a document in preparation for a public release *doesn't* happen overnight, especially when there were multiple agencies involved in the production of the document. A document that requires review by the CIA and multiple other agencies with intel gathering capability can take weeks, months or even years to be released in response to a FOIA request. The report being released so quickly wasn't a leak or a "setup" of Gabbard by the "Deep State." Gabbard's just so clueless she didn't even know the declassification and public release process was well underway.
Yes, there's chaos, insanity, and lots of frustration and pain in the federal workforce right now. But those employees who are still being allowed to come to work and do their job are still doing it to the best of their ability in compliance with federal law and legal rules & regulations...most of which proceed Trump 1.0 and he can't (yet) do anything about. That includes processing FOIA requests. Trump and his minions will likely try to minimize Americans ability to get accurate information through the FOIA process by cutting funding/firing FOIA experts at agencies, but IMO at most, if not all agencies, other employees will step up and take on additional responsibilities to make sure the work gets done. It just may get done a little slower than ever before. (Which is the exact opposite of "efficient" but we all know the creation of DOGE was never actually about making the federal government more efficient and helpful to the American people.)
Great stuff. Appreciate the thoughts and detail.
For the time being, we can count on FRED. As for food safety, we have to get in the habit of cooking >everything< really, really well.
It started when DOGE broke in. You know they marked a bunch of people as dead in Social Security data, right?
You can't trust any reports the government puts out.
I'm waiting for someone who can't get by financially because they were marked as "dead" to reciprocate in kind.
>The most important thing to understand about Trump’s trade war is that it’s an attempt to solve a problem that only exists in his imagination.<
This really is the key.
Trump has already revealed the true nature of his tariffs. He wants to create an "External Revenue Service" and eliminate the income tax altogether. That means the burden of supporting the government will fall on consumers through higher sales taxes (aka tariffs). This is a purely regressive tax structure. The rich will pay a much smaller share of their wealth under this scheme. It has long been a wet dream of the wealthy.
Yes. Trump does indeed *want* to replace the income tax with tariffs. But there is flatly zero way , and I mean ZERO way, this is remotely feasible. The numbers aren't even close to penciling out for such a shift.
He is a moron-crank on all things related to economic policy.
Their math makes sense to them... but in reality, reducing imports by raising tariffs makes it even harder to generate the funds to replace income tax (which is reduced by breaks for the rich and firing workers). The end result of all of it is a lot smaller budget to run the government, which is providing less and less value (as they intended).
exactly. For him, America was great under President McKinley (d. 1901) - lots of tariffs, no income tax - and a handful of robber barons and a lot of people in misery. What's not to like?
He worships
A president
Who was
ASSASSINATED
For his
Policies!
(Leading to Teddy
Roosevelt, who
I don’t think Trump
Admires at all!)
Yes, except I question the use of ‘imagination’ to describe it. Hallucination maybe more to the point.
If only DJT were on acid. LSD would be a convenient explanation—if only that were true.
As a stupid German I don't understand the theory that the US trade deficit is due to the attractiveness of the US as an investment location! Isn't the reason for the trade deficit rather the fact that the US, in satisfying its excessive demand for goods, takes advantage of lower wages in other countries to get these goods much cheaper than if they were made in the US? Ultimately, both American consumers and companies exploit poor foreign workers. What's particularly piquant is that it's largely American corporations that are driving up the trade deficit by, for example, manufacturing smartphones, sneakers and clothing in low-wage countries, importing them into the US and selling them here at huge profits, driving up GDP significantly. Perhaps journalists should hold this up to Donny 2 Dolls when he once again presents his narrative of the poor Americans who have been ripped off.
The EU has a trade surplus with the US. The excess money in the EU is then invested in the US because it produces a higher yield in the US (the US is more attractive).
The trade deficit of the US is not the result of the attractiveness of the US economy, but rather, the investment surplus as a result of the attractiveness of the US economy ensures that the dollar won't drop against the Euro as a result of the trade deficit.
At least, all that used to be the case until Caving Don started his tariff war...
In my opinion that doesn't really explain the trade surplus of Germany.
In my opinion, the reasons for this trade surplus are very complex. For example, Germany's surplus in terms of trade in passenger cars is mainly due to the fact that Germany built vehicles in the past for which there was a demand in the USA due to various circumstances that I won't go into here. In contrast, there was hardly any interest in Germany and the entire EU in American vehicles other than TESLAS because these vehicles are not considered attractive for many reasons. The often high fuel consumption is just one of them. In addition, the EU actually imposes 10% tariffs on passenger cars other than pickups, which were significantly higher than the American tariffs before Trump. Incidentally, the ratio of tariffs between the USA and the EU was reversed for pickups even before Trump. One reason for the relative competitiveness of German cars was the fact that German austerity policies managed to keep wages in Germany rising only very moderately and that wage growth lagged well behind productivity growth. Nevertheless, due to government measures and other circumstances, the German automotive industry has relocated a not inconsiderable proportion of its production to the USA. The associated investments have even ensured that the increase in the trade deficit has been curbed.
On the other hand, TESLA, also attracted by German subsidies, has had a production facility built and put into operation in Germany, which in turn is unlikely to have helped reduce the US trade deficit.
And if German companies and investors prefer to invest their money in the American investment market rather than in increasing the productivity of their own companies, as is actually happening in some cases, this is more likely to lead to a decline in German competitiveness on the global markets. This also has a dampening effect on the German trade surplus.
"In my opinion that doesn't really explain the trade surplus of Germany."
What explains Germany's trade surplus - the US wants (needs) more goods from Germany than Germany wants (needs) from the US.
The reason why this trade deficit doesn't affect the value of the Dollar is - Germany re-invests the trade surplus in the US.
The sum of Accounting Identities is always zero, meaning, if Germany would not invest the surplus in the US, the dollar would drop in value so that the US would sell more goods to Germany, and Germany would sell less goods to the US, thus eliminating the trade deficit.
Money will not flow in one direction indefinitely.
This is obviously a very crude simplification, but it does in essence explain the correlation between trade deficits, investment surpluses and relative currency values...
Another German here, but here’s my understanding: If a lot of people want to invest in the US (this was true in the past) and people in the US have at least some degree of interest in buying things that are offered for sale outside the US (regardless of whether it’s transportable goods that would be imported into the US or e.g. real estate outside the US), what will happen is that the people who want to invest in the US will be looking to sell money of their currencies for US dollars, while the US people who are interested in buying things that are outside the US will be looking to buy foreign currencies for US dollars. For reasons of arithmetic, the number of US dollars that is sold for foreign currencies is always equal to the number of US dollars that is (by others) bought for foreign currencies. The market mechanism that makes this balance out is the exchange rate and the resulting decisions. If the US becomes less attractive for investment, the value of the dollar falls in terms of foreign currencies, so that imported goods become more expensive in terms of US dollars until they are (in terms of US dollars) so expensive that the total amount of US dollars that is sold for foreign currencies is again equal to the number of US dollars that is (by others, including in particular investors) bought for foreign currencies.
But what if the US becomes so unattractive for investment that so many investors want to take their investments out that there is a net capital outflow from terminated investments exceeding the value of all goods and services produced in the US that are suitable for exporting and that someone somewhere is interested at all in buying? That’s when things would get really painful not only in the US, but really for financial institutions worldwide, as at that point adjustment cannot happen anymore just through adjustments of the exchange rate. Not only would US imports drop to close to zero because they’d be unaffordably expensive, but in addition interests rates in the US would have to rise sharply until the they are so high that investment in the US thereby become attractive enough again to balance the equation. Sharply rising interest rates mean that that the book value of fixed-rate investments held by US banks declines sharply, probably resulting in a flood of bank runs and bankruptcies of financial institutions in the US, resulting through contagion in a severe global financial crisis.
And factor in the distaste in Europe and Canada for buying American stuff. Or visiting the US as well as investing in the US service economy by sending their students here. Add to that Chinese and Latin America distrust of visiting or studying in the US. It’s not just an upcoming cratering of global trade in stuff (empty shelves, expensive goods) but in services or intangibles that come with our now-cratering reputation for security and quality.
Indeed, declining interest in US exports, some aspects of which you mention, is certainly important, especially in the long run. One aspect of this which many analyses are overlooking is the very significant value of US exports of “intellectual property” licensing as well as online services. That could IMO easily collapse when trust in the US deteriorates. (Sales to consumers all involve personal data of consumers in regard to which the US should now be regarded as very untrustworthy. Most sales to businesses involve some kind of economic dependency in regard to which the US should now be regarded as very untrustworthy.)
Nevertheless I still see the biggest risk that is contained in the current situation in the possibility of a bank run type scenario in which foreign investors try to pull their capital out of the US investment market, with in this scenario a rapid deterioration of the exchange value of the US dollar (motivating ever more foreign investors to liquidate their US assets before the value of the dollar falls even more) and a rapid rise of interest rates in the US (causing a crisis or even collapse of the financial system via the mechanism described above).
Don't forget the role of the US dollar as an international reserve currency. When the orange menace succeeds in knocking the dollar off that pedestal, it will put the foot on the accelerator of the process you have described here.
The foundational accounting equation clarifies. Paul explained it in these earlier posts:
"Here’s what you need to know about the balance of payments: it always balances. That is,
Trade balance + Net inflows of capital = 0"
[https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/from-exorbitant-privilege-to-invincible]
"Trump wants to reduce the U.S. trade deficit; he also wants to attract more foreign investment into the United States. But he can’t, as a matter of sheer accounting..."
[https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/masayoshi-son-and-the-art-of-the]
Thank you for your hints! But I think the mentioned equation doesn't clarify the problem.
This equation is often misunderstood: The balance of payments is a flow account over a period of time, not a balance sheet, and it is always balanced ex post because every current account entry has a mirror entry in the capital account.
If a country A exports goods worth €100 to Country B the receivable is recorded as a capital export in A’s capital account.
Therefore, in my opinion, the equation does nothing to answer the question of why and to what extent foreign investment in the US is the cause of the trade deficit.
Basically, we’re ripping ourselves off! They few in America—not the foreigners abroad— are exploiting the many here, as our own businesses create our trade deficit. Somebody tell Dunderhead Donny about this!
The few are ripping off the majority of Americans not by creating a trade deficit, but by their greed to make more and more profits through businesses that hardly anyone really needed and giving back as little of it as possible via taxes to the general public that makes their profits possible in the first place, as was the case in the truly golden years of the USA after the Second World War.
Today, little girls are being taken to task by one of the world's biggest sociopaths for not being satisfied with two golf courses of his own but preferring to own 30 or more.
Nobody with a brain gets excited when Trump speaks, most get a splitting headache and moan “make it stop”. To the simpletons who vote and support the GOP, remember it’s more than just one man, everything has a simple answer. Simple people like simple answers, teenage pregnancy? Stop teach sex education! Feeling weak and threatened by the number of non-white people at the grocery store? Deport them! Trump and the GOP are using tariffs and trade wars as their “Lost Cause”.
Dr Krugman: you asked what the orange rapist will do after monday's consumer prices report comes out, showing that things are just as terrible as we've all been telling him? he will do what he always does when confronted by the reality of his own incompetence: blame biden.
speaking of the orange rapist, he mentioned in his tweet (which you repost in your message) that "tariff money is pouring into the USA" which makes me wonder if these funds are actually crypto pouring into agent orange's crypto wallet, but he's too stupid to realize this isn't tariff money?
Nothing is EVER Donnie’s fault, is it? He doesn’t even try to be subtle about his refusal to take responsibility for anything bad. A CLEVER narcissist would try to hide his blame-everyone-else-ness with fancy talk. But I guess Donny’s not Dubya. Dubya only pretended to be dumb; DJT only pretends to be smart!
I wonder if Trump attended even one of his economics classes in college? Those in charge of the Wharton undergrad program must cringe every time he speaks about business!
Early on, in 2015 or 2016, he claimed to have graduated from Wharton first in his class, but also threatened to sue the school if they released his transcripts. Uh huh...
And unfortunately for the Donny Two Scoops several of his classmates have published the 1968 Penn commencement program online. As is typical it lists the honor students in order Summa, Magna etc and then the non-honor students that are graduating. DJT is listed with the latter group so we can safely put the "top of the class" BS to bed.
Ah, but he was at the top of his class in BS!
Well, were it not for that I would be doubting he graduated at all.
I wish Wharton would rescind their diploma to Trump.
Are we sure he's even got a diploma? Let's see it.
Good point!! Some enterprising reporter should look into that.
Per my comment above he was at least listed in the commencement program for Penn 1968 but doesn't mean he learned a damn thing while there.
He never learned
Anything since
He was 7 years old!
Attending an economics class? BO-RING! I have it on good authority they don't spend enough time praising Trump to be interesting.
Yes, prices are going up, and inexpensive toys & goods will be in short supply. However, the really nasty clip of fecal matter hitting the HVAC is the flight of Capital from the previously perceived safe haven of a stable US investment ecology. With no-one being able to predict what the Republicans will do, the Capital has started to run away.
The older of us may recall watching the Reagan tax cuts for the Rich (predicted ably, and predicted) flow out of the US towards emerging markets, then paying much more robust returns. Watch the Trump tax cuts for the Rich go the same way, this time due to fear of Trump chaos.
Smoke and mirrors works in financial markets fir only a little while, then real problems surface. The question is, will they surface in time for the mid terms elections. Nothing will save us (all of us, everywhere) from the incoming catastrophic climate change impacts, but the death of the contemporary Republican/MAGA party as a national political power in the US, could allow us to collaborate with the rest of the world towards mitigating the worst of it.
Debasing the dollar is part of the plan.
Concept of a plan ... or in Shakespeare's words, Much Ado About Nothing.
But Paul is exactly correct
You mean another day of the liar in chief bullshitting the rest of us, while state propaganda fox News will perpetuate even further the exploitation of the gullible dopes of maga.
Trump on tariffs etc: If it ain't broke, declare a national emergency & break it!
We are all baffled by the quotation marks, just as we are about the incorrect use of capital letters. There is a screw loose somewhere in the brain.
Just the one?! There are A TON OF LOOSE AND *MISSING* SCREWS in Trump’s “brain”!!
What brain?
I believe the quotations around eggs signifies Trump's awareness that eggs are, in fact, unborn chickens, and arguably deserve the same protections given to hatchlings. /s
Even if they're unfertilized.