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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

If you did not see Rachel Maddow’s show last night (3/17/25) I urge you to find it and watch it. I know some people don’t like her etc. etc. etc. However, what she reported is – well – terrifying? I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not one thing but several. I will summarize below then we can move on to Paul Krugman and his economic outlook, which is steeped in some economic jargon, but not much and is also terrifying.

Let’s begin, Rachel’s reporting:

– Doge now has an army and they are using it to break into government offices,

– Trump is now ignoring court orders and illegally flying people to a prison in El Salvador

Here’s part of it:

Now Krugman’s reporting:

– the swing voters who elected Trump were expecting to see lower prices and better jobs are now regretting their decision as measured by The Index of Consumer Confidence. Paul says that it “has fallen off a cliff”, that it is “truly remarkable” how quickly it has turned. etc. etc. etc.

Krugman has labelled this as the stages of Trump economic grief. He lists four and ends with five as “????”.

They are:

1. Prices will come down right away.

2. It’s hard and will take time.

3. Sorry, we need a painful economic detox.

4. Hey, there’s more to life than consumer goods.

5. ???

Krugman goes on to say that Trump and his minions are providing fake answers to fake problems and that the economy isn’t bad “yet”. The “yet” has me deeply worried. It recalls a time when I went paint balling with my son. We were at a huge battle. Our side had advanced and were very thin in numbers because we were stretched out. I could see the other side massing people. It was huge and then they came for us. We were completely overrun. I’ve never been in a real battle, but I got a taste of what it must be like. I have a similar sense economically. Or maybe you prefer the tidal wave metaphor. You know the one where all the water leaves the bay? Most of the beach goers marvel at the lack of water and go down to the empty bay. A few realize this means a giant wave is coming which has sucked all the water out of the bay. Those few run for the hills. Well kids, it’s time to run for the hills – economically speaking. The wave is coming.

But back to Rachel’s reporting. And as Mr. Natural was asked, “What does it all mean?”

It means that one part of government is being used to break in and take over another part of government. 

Not only that, but when the judiciary is telling the executive branch you can’t do that the executive branch is saying, “Oh yeah?” 

Both Krugman and Maddow arrive at the same place. Trump and his minions are thumbing their noses and calling out “Nanny nanny boo boo”. 

So the rule of law no longer holds. They are coming for someone it could be you and you could find yourself in a jail in El Salvador without being charged for any crime. And the Trump team answer? So what? Try and stop us. We’ll do what we want. The law be damned. Meanwhile, huge storm clouds and waves are building that will economically run over this country and the world. 

And those waves? Yeah, maybe they are just economic, but they could be disease. Yeah, we are seeing a return of measles, ebola, tuberculosis, and some really rare and unstoppable diseases. There is bird flu, but also there is that disease that marmots have. I can’t remember the name right now. But hey, they are in Tibet so who cares? You know Tibet? It’s between China (well China has over run it) and Russia. Did you know Don Jr. went there? Yeah, he ate marmot. He commented that he knew it was illegal but so what? Well, Donny you could be a carrier. But where has he been? Oh Serbia? Yeah, a country under the thumb of a Putin crony. The country has people in the streets protesting that guy. Like 320,000 people in the streets. A major part of their population. Don Jr says the protests were imported. Like Krugman asks of other things, “from where?” Hey don’t worry if Donny is infected and he gives it to Serbia and their population gives it to the rest of the world it will take at least until the next President to reach are shores. Am I right? Oh that might be you, Donny, you are thinking about running I’ve read.

So to sum up:

– we are emulating the authoritarian practices of Hungary and Russia and others

– the economy which is still strong is ready to have a huge wave of collapse

– we could all be fighting a deadly disease.

Or as Bruno Mars says, “Don’t believe me, just watch.”

Now for some good vibes. Cynthia Erivo was on The Voice last night. She said to a young woman, “Let me hear your full belt.” The woman did a kind of thing that sounded like she was doing Porgy and Bess. Erivo said, “That’s not your full belt.” The woman opened her mouth and did it again. Much better. Michael Buble asked Cynthia if she could demonstrate her “full belt.” 

She opened her mouth – really opened her mouth and let out a note, a sound, I don’t know what you’d call it, but it sent shivers over my whole body. Not only that but I was shaking and quaking. I mean I was in spasms. I have heard great singers hit some notes: Whitney, Adele, … But this? This was another level. 

I went back and listened again. I think I went back seven times. Yeah. it was that good.

I had heard another woman do a similar thing. Loren Allred. She walked out onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent and she and Simon had a brief conversation. Who are you? Where are you from?

Loren Allred, Brooklynn, I’m here because I like many British singers, and you’ve probably heard me sing but don’t know it. I sang, “Never Enough” for the movie “The Greatest Showman.”

Simon – “that was you? You sang one of the greatest songs of all time in that movie? Are you going to sing it here?”

“Yes.”

Simon sat back and she opened her mouth. There are good singers. Many of them are on shows like The Voice, AGT, and BGT. But then there’s Erivo and Allred. When Loren finished it was transformational. There’s a greatness to her voice. As with Cynthia it makes me shake and have goose bumps, chills.

It gives me hope.

And we are going to need hope.

Until the levee breaks.

Sunday, March 16, 2025 Post-Ides

I subscribe to Paul Krugman’s posts. He’s a Nobel winning economist. He does economic analysis and translates it into stuff I can understand.

He put out an email today with a chart about inflation. See if you can spot the change?

This chart goes back 35 years. Infalation has been coming down until 2020 when it started to go up – slowly. Maybe, you remember the world was in a lot of hurt due to Covid back then and our lackluster response until Joe Biden came in and passed an infrastructure bill and other spending bills that supercharged our economy and was the envy of the world.

Krugman notes that the slow rise in inflation beginning in the first part of this decade was deemed acceptable because it was around 2% a year and wages were increasing as well. Slight inflation helps an economy and it helps to pay off debt, but a sudden rise? That stokes fears and people hold back spending and lose confidence in the future economic outlook.

Trump ran on the promise to lower prices and the lie that the economy was terrible. His minnions are parroting that lie. I wonder what they will say when the economy takes the nosedive we are undoubtedly headed for?

Me? I’m in a quandry, “Do I buy the Trump assasination coin, the Trump shot glass with a bullet in it, or the Tump garbage truck die cast model? All purport to show my loyalty to the country. Why can’t I get a Trump garbage tuck with Trump coins as wheels, and a bullet in it somewhere? Maybe it could be made into a wine cooler for Trump wine? Trump red wine – significant of the blood shed on January 6th. Cold red wine. So classy.

BTW I talked with a buddy in Egypt and he said not many Americans are coming to visit. I wonder why? Oh yeah, when you go to another country, like it or not, you represent The United States of America. I was asked what I thought of Johnson when I was in Europe back when he was president. And it’s been that way ever since. If they like our president they smile and repeat his name, if they don’t? Yikes. You never know if you’ll have to fight your way out of a place. Hopefully, ifsomeone is pissed off you can mollify them with words and get away. But there’s a languge barrier and this limits your conversational choices.

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. 

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Two Things:

One) The Smoot-Hawley tariffs were signed into law by Herbert Hoover in June 1930. It is the last time we did broad based tariffs. They were about 20%. This led to increased prices, the failure of overseas banks, deepening of the economic recession, and some argued the rise of Hitler.

Two) During the first term of President Eisenhower the top tax rate (ie on the wealthy) was 92%. This was the best economy the U.S. ever had. During the second term that tax rate was 91%.

Certainly, one can argue that there were a lot of factors why the economy was so strong in the 50s. Maybe, the fact that all of Europe and Asia were bombed into oblivion had something to do with it? 

When Reagan took office in 1980 he did two things:

A) He reduced the upper tax rate from 70% to 28%

B) He attacked the unions

Since Reagan there has been a steady decline in the middle class in terms of wages, and opportunities.

In the 1960 and 70s it was possible to move up in the world through hard work, and by getting a good education. 

This is no longer true.

Paul Krugman has just published a piece saying that the business people who backed Trump thought all his bat-shit crazy stuff was just fluff talk are now realizing he meant it. Huh.

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

We didn’t listen to the Trump speech. We spent most of the time in a French bistro. The reviews said it was romantic. ???The reality was it was noisy, but the food was outstanding.

I listened to Larry Summers earlier in the day. As an economist he’s pretty good. As a person? Not so much. He asked the basic question about Trump’s tariffs, “Who do they benefit?” or “How is this advantageous to Americans (or Canadians, or Mexicans.) 

He went o to explain that when it comes to production of things like cars you have to think in terms of regions: China, Europe, North America.

The U.S. car manufacturing does not exist by itself. It is tightly woven into Canada and Mexico. One has to think regionally. But this would be hard for Mr. Trump to understand as he doesn’t grasp basics like how tariffs work or what the words Pearl Harbor refer to.

What is shocking is that no one in his administration or in the Republican Congress seems willing or able to tell him. The only one who did was President Macron. And then we saw Trump give that goofy grin and shrug. As soon as Macron left The Oval Office the orange one was back to his old lies about the amount of aid the U.S. had given to Ukraine. Now, he’s cutting off not only aid but intelligence. 

And the ambush of Zelenskyy in the White House? OMG! Shocking, disgusting, and criminal.

Meanwhile the reality or even the suggestion of tariffs sent the stock market tumbling. Eggs are still much more expensive than under Biden. Children are dying from measles. A disease that had been labelled “eradicated” in 2000. And yet the sycophants continue to pretend that this is normal.

Right wing media has been touting the idea of “the deep state,” and there is one person in particular that JD Vance and his backer Peter Thiel are listening to. That fellow is all about destroying the government and installing a CEO (or as he says “Dictator.”) and that people need to get over it.

While animals are not being feed in Iowa and are starving to death, and illnesses are breaking out in this country and the world people are starting to understand that the “deep state” is a lot of dedicated people doing things to help the world and society and our country. Without them things are getting worse. 

What will it take? A general pandemic? A depression? “Authorized” thugs beating people in the streets?

Some have said, “This is not what we voted for.” Others are saying, “Give it time.”

What happened to all those promised fixes on Day 1?

Vanished.

There are PR campaigns to say that they are going to have no taxes on tips, but the bill the Republicans have doesn’t mention that. Doge says they’ve rehired the ebola folks, but the reality is they haven’t.

As our economy shrinks and our influence in the world does too what will happen? It’s hard to know for sure but one thing is certain. Whatever it is we will be less of a country because of it. 

We are shrinking militarily, economically, diplomatically and morally. There is a cabal of people who have been listening to each other for years. They speak in code. They have signs. Look at Pete Hegseth’s chest, he has a giant iron cross on his right pectoral. Turns out it’s not an Iron Cross but the cross of The First Crusade. A popular symbol with white Christian Nationalists. There is the continual talk of getting rid of “the deep state,” and it turns out that they are scientists and people who know how to make the government work.

I remember Michael Lewis writing in “The Fifth Element” that a Fox News host had a farm and he was having a ribbon cutting for some expansion he was doing. There was a woman standing nearby the ceremony and he asked her what she was doing there. She told him she was from The Department of Agriculture and she was the one who approved his loan that he was so proud of. He didn’t realize that the Department of Agriculture worked through local banks to approve low interest loans to farmers. This would be part of the “deep state” that these right wingers want to get rid of. Not entirely mind you, their banking buddies are slobbering over the billions of dollars in low interest loans the Ag Department has. Imagine if they can get in there and jack up the rates?