Day 70 (50) – Russian Asset and Recession

Forgot to post this one.

Monday, March 10, 2025

Senator Merkley is asking Trump nominees, “Is Trump a Russian asset?”

Here’s a little bit of the back and forth:

Merkley’s point being, “If he’s not a Russian asset how do you explain his behavior?”

Put another way, “What else would Trump need to do to be a Russian asset?”

The sad truth is that his behavior certainly points to his being a Russian asset. Either he’s a “useful idiot” or he’s a paid (in someway) Russian asset.

When he was first running in 2016 there was the incident of a Russian server directly connected to Trump Tower. When asked about it there was denial, then the server was brought down only to pop up under a different name. When asked about that second server there was denial and it went down again and never came back up. Then there was Jared trying to make a back door to Russia. None of this has ever been explained. Nor have we learned what Trump talked to Putin about in his first term.

Aside from doing what many say is on Putin’s wish list Trump is also doing everything to wreck the economy and to cover it up. Not only is he getting rid of as many oversight positions as possible he now is having his minions suggest they should take government spending out of the GDP. If you haven’t taken Econ 101 let me explain a very basic tennet of economics.

GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product. This is the measure of the value of everything created in an economy. Typically referred to as “Goods and Services.” A big factor in any economy is what the government buys. This is referred to as “Fiscal Policy.” Fiscal Policy has two pieces: What the government spends on goods and services, and taxes. 

I think one can see that how much a government spends can have an effect on an overall economy. Well, the geniuses that work for Trump such as his Commerce Secretary and Trump himself want to remove what the government spends from the GDP of the United States.

Imagine if you were trying to figure out how much you needed each month to pay your bills and you decided not to count rent or groceries? Wow. That could make your number look really good. What if rent was $2300 and groceries were $500. That’s $2800 you didn’t count. If you worked a minimum wage job ($7.50x40x4) you make $1200.00/week. Taxes and Social Security take a chunk (SS = 6.4%, taxes = 22% or $340/week).

I a four week month that’s $4800 less ($340×4) or $1360 which totals to $3440 left. If you subtract out rent and groceries you have (3440-2800) or $640 for other things like gas and medical bills.

But if you don’t count rent and groceries you have lots of money!

This is “I Love Lucy” type thinking. (Look it up.)

Here’s something from one of my economic newsletters:

The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model now predicts an economic contraction in the first quarter, exacerbated by front-running tariffs and reduced government spending.

How is The Orange One going to spin this? Biden’s fault? (Sen Cotton and other have tried to say Biden left us with a terrible economy. Except he didn’t. Even Fox News business people praised it. We had four years of positive jobs reports, until this month.)

Be prepared. Look up what folks did that survived the depression of ’29 (exacerated by the tariffs of ’30 and the banks refusing to loan money in ’32) All these problems and all financial down turns happened under Republican presidents.