Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Masark]

Punk consumer spending? Is that some technical macroeconomic term.

No, just rather obsolete vocabulary.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/punk#Adjective

[Cthulhu 2020]

https://x.com/Bricktop_NAFO/status/1908974742444335358

So Trump asked Kushner to find an economic advisor.

Kushner went on Amazon and found a book called "Death by China"

He didn't read the book, he just liked the title and the description.

Peter Navarro is extremely aggressively pro tariff and his books quote expert economist "Ron Vara" for support of aggressive tariffs.








Turns out Ron Vara is not real. Ron Vara is an anagram for Navarro.

Peter Navarro's aggressive pro tariff policy was all made up in his head and he wrote it down in his books.

And now it's crashing our economy.

Worst administration in history.

[Breccia]

Now what's going to happen with the market? I can't tell you, but I can tell you, our country has gotten a lot stronger, and eventually it'll be a country like no other, it'll be the most dominant country economically in the world

I like how Trump, the person who specifically, directly, and personally caused all this damage, is hiding behind "eventually".

"How will we be the most dominant country if we can't buy or sell anything?"

Trump said he didn't know. That invalidates everything else he predicts.

[Rasulis]

Lutnick: You realize trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America. That's huge gdp. The factories being built in America are huge --

Brennan: That takes years, and you said that robots are going to fill those jobs. So those aren't union worker jobs.

Lutnick: it’s automated factories.. The key is who is going to build and operate the factories

Exactly what I said in a previous post. He finally admitted to it.

[postman1782]

Japanese futures hit a "circuit breaker" because trading was so bad.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/stoc...-panic-8104870

[Teriz]

Lutnick: You realize trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America. That's huge gdp. The factories being built in America are huge --

Brennan: That takes years, and you said that robots are going to fill those jobs. So those aren't union worker jobs.

Lutnick: it’s automated factories.. The key is who is going to build and operate the factories

Exactly what I said in a previous post. He finally admitted to it.

The only thing worse than this smug fucker on there saying this stupid garbage are the MAGA faithful nodding along like true imbeciles.

[Rasulis]

The only thing worse than this smug fucker on there saying this stupid garbage are the MAGA faithful nodding along like true imbeciles.

"When you've given too many crappy interviews and forget you admitted the whole premise of bringing manufacturing back to America to create good paying jobs was a farce."

Who said that?

Jessica Tarlov from FOX News.

[Kaleredar]

Who said that?

Jessica Tarlov from FOX News.

And again, I think maga’s pitch of “those jobs are definitely coming back! You’ll definitely be making more and paying less someday!” is gonna fall real flat when people are facing unemployment, paying more, and making less.

Harris couldn’t sell people on an improving economy that was actually improving just because the “vibes” were that it wasn’t great. I don’t think trump is going to be very successful on pitching a failing economy that’s “totally gonna get better I swear.”

[Xyonai]

And again, I think maga’s pitch of “those jobs are definitely coming back! You’ll definitely be making more and paying less someday!” is gonna fall real flat when people are facing unemployment, paying more, and making less.

Harris couldn’t sell people on an improving economy that was actually improving just because the “vibes” were that it wasn’t great. I don’t think trump is going to be very successful on pitching a failing economy that’s “totally gonna get better I swear.”

It feels like that one idiot who used to post here about the necessity of automating everything and also being adamant that we don't need safty nets or anything to help the people displaced by robots.

It's a special sort of stupid cruelty that just plays defense for the super rich and fundamentally fails to understand how Economics even works at a gradeschool level.

[Breccia]

I don’t think trump is going to be very successful on pitching a failing economy that’s “totally gonna get better I swear.”

He doesn't have to. His cultists are brainwashed. They'll say it on their own, even as they lose their jobs, their houses, their health care and life savings.

I kept saying they would literally rather die than admit they made a mistake. I was not being metaphorical.

[Kaleredar]

He doesn't have to. His cultists are brainwashed. They'll say it on their own, even as they lose their jobs, their houses, their health care and life savings.

I kept saying they would literally rather die than admit they made a mistake. I was not being metaphorical.

Again though, I don’t give a flying fuck about his cultists. What matters is whether the general public, as politically detached as they may be, feel. And everything going up in price and people losing their jobs and so forth… that’s hard to tell people isn’t happening when it’s happening to them, or people they know.

[Breccia]

What matters is whether the general public

The general public is demonstrably overrun by cultists.

[Dontrike]

So recently Mike "my son looks at my porn" Johnson recently said "The adults are back in the room and we are going to turn this economy around..." Little did he realize that turning something decent around makes it really shitty. Here is an exchange between him and a reporter. I pulled this off of someone pulling it from Twitter, cause I don't want to link from Nazi Yahtzee.com

REPORTER: Mr. Speaker, you say “the adults are back in the room,” but yesterday, your press secretary suggested that tariffs are actually a tax cut for American families. Can you explain that math to us? Because last I checked, tariffs raise prices, not lower them.

MIKE JOHNSON: Well, what we’re doing is ensuring American industries are protected—

REPORTER: No, no—do you actually understand economics? Because you keep throwing around terms like “algorithms” and “efficiencies,” but I don’t recall seeing a PhD in economics next to your name. What exactly is your specialty?

MIKE JOHNSON: We are working with experts—

REPORTER: Right, experts like Elon Musk, who just lost billions in Tesla stock but somehow gets to shape federal economic policy. Tell me, when will egg prices come down? Since you’re so confident in your economic plan, surely you can tell American families when groceries will finally be affordable again?

MIKE JOHNSON: Prices will stabilize over time—

REPORTER: Define “over time.” Because tariffs drive up costs immediately. You do know that, right?

MIKE JOHNSON: We’re focused on making the U.S. competitive—

REPORTER: Okay, let’s test your economic knowledge. What is the law of demand and supply? If you tax imported goods, does that increase or decrease production costs for American manufacturers?

MIKE JOHNSON: Well, it depends—

REPORTER: No, it doesn’t depend. It’s basic economics. Tariffs increase costs for businesses, which means higher prices for consumers. Your policies are making things more expensive, not cheaper.

MIKE JOHNSON: That’s not entirely accurate—

REPORTER: Then explain it to us. What is the relationship between tariffs, prices, and production? Because right now, it seems like you’re just saying words with no understanding of how any of this works.

MIKE JOHNSON: We are implementing strategic measures—

REPORTER: Right, and those “strategic measures” have led to the Dow dropping more than 4% since inauguration, Tesla tanking, and Americans paying more for everything from milk to cars. If this is what “the adults in the room” look like, maybe we need a new set of adults.

[gondrin]

I mean... that's not correct either.

The position of the Constitution is that the government acknowledges and protects rights; it does not grant them, because they are inalienable in the first place.

This might seem to be sophistry, but it's the official position.

But no, they're not "God-given", either.

That is the thing here. The Constitution doesn't lay out any rights anyone has. It literally restricts what the government is allowed to do in respect to the citizenry. This is why you can be outright censored on private property, someone in their home can literally ban or restrict whomever they want for whatever reason.

The government, up until recently, has to have a good reason to restrict those "rights".

- - - Updated - - -

Lutnick: You realize trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America. That's huge gdp. The factories being built in America are huge --

Brennan: That takes years, and you said that robots are going to fill those jobs. So those aren't union worker jobs.

Lutnick: it’s automated factories.. The key is who is going to build and operate the factories

Exactly what I said in a previous post. He finally admitted to it.

So, much like how tax cuts are supposed to bring in jobs, these tariffs are a "wink wink" type of thing where they will bring stuff back, just not the workforce with them. In the end, more people are worse off and only those that are rich make out.

- - - Updated - - -

I like how Trump, the person who specifically, directly, and personally caused all this damage, is hiding behind "eventually".

"How will we be the most dominant country if we can't buy or sell anything?"

Trump said he didn't know. That invalidates everything else he predicts.

The one thing I would love Trump to explain is how is tariffing everyone going to cause them to BUY anything from the US. How is tariffing everyone going to stop them from doing any business with the US?

Because, the one main way to get around a tariff is to just not partake in selling of anything from the host country. Just refuse to do business with the country that is trying to push them onto everyone.

I swear, Trump or someone close to him forgets that the reason why the US is the economic powerhouse that it is, or was, is because of massive amounts of free trade with a bunch of nations. I've said it earlier in the thread that the most valuable thing the US sells is a currency that is stable. Followed by massive amounts of intellectual property and ideas.

This is why Musk is basically calling out Peter Navarro for being an idiot because, much like Trump, Navarro has been pushing tariffs for a long time. He even made up a fake persona to use as an expert to prove himself right.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-ma...175426436.html

Trump “came up with the idea” after the circulation of a “fake memo from a fake person with a fake email address,” she explained.

The memo in question was the brainchild of author and economist Peter Navarro — also the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing for the administration — who entered the Trump sphere after Jared Kushner found his book “Death by China” and asked him to join Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as an economic adviser.

In his books, Maddow continued, Navarro often cited the work of a so-called economics expert named Ron Vara. “V-A-R-A, Ron Vara,” Maddow said. “Vara” shared a memo in Washington D.C. circles after Trump won the presidency

“At one point, Ron Vara wrote in the memo that Trump could, quote, ‘Ride the tariffs to victory,'” Maddow said. The problem is, Ron Vara doesn’t exist. He never has. The economics expert that Peter Navarro has long cited to explain why he’s so gung-ho on tariffs, this person, Ron Vara, is a made-up person.”

“He is a fictional person. Peter Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books,” she continued. “Who is Ron Vara? Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro, which is his last name.”

[Rasulis]

So, much like how tax cuts are supposed to bring in jobs, these tariffs are a "wink wink" type of thing where they will bring stuff back, just not the workforce with them. In the end, more people are worse off and only those that are rich make out.

The reality is that there aren't enough workers in the US to provide the workforce for 1970's style manufacturing facilities. There aren't enough machinists to service all the modern manufacturing facilities to do everything in the US.

In fact, there are more lawyers in the US than machinist. According to the bar association, as of 2022, there are more than 1.3 million lawyers in the US. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 288,789 machinists currently employed in the United States. Median age 47 years.

[alach]

That is the thing here. The Constitution doesn't lay out any rights anyone has. It literally restricts what the government is allowed to do in respect to the citizenry. This is why you can be outright censored on private property, someone in their home can literally ban or restrict whomever they want for whatever reason.

The government, up until recently, has to have a good reason to restrict those "rights".

- - - Updated - - -



So, much like how tax cuts are supposed to bring in jobs, these tariffs are a "wink wink" type of thing where they will bring stuff back, just not the workforce with them. In the end, more people are worse off and only those that are rich make out.

- - - Updated - - -



The one thing I would love Trump to explain is how is tariffing everyone going to cause them to BUY anything from the US. How is tariffing everyone going to stop them from doing any business with the US?

Because, the one main way to get around a tariff is to just not partake in selling of anything from the host country. Just refuse to do business with the country that is trying to push them onto everyone.

I swear, Trump or someone close to him forgets that the reason why the US is the economic powerhouse that it is, or was, is because of massive amounts of free trade with a bunch of nations. I've said it earlier in the thread that the most valuable thing the US sells is a currency that is stable. Followed by massive amounts of intellectual property and ideas.

This is why Musk is basically calling out Peter Navarro for being an idiot because, much like Trump, Navarro has been pushing tariffs for a long time. He even made up a fake persona to use as an expert to prove himself right.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-ma...175426436.html

Makes perfect sense. Also explains who trump is talking about when he says that "so many people have told him how amazing he is" and rattles off his sources of information without ever giving a proper name to said individuals. They are all just made up. As phony as the phantom electorate that cost him 2020 and the mythical immigrants that feast nightly on beloved Spot and Lord Kittensworth.

[Kaleredar]

The general public is demonstrably overrun by cultists.

I don’t believe that’s the case. And if it is the case you might as well pack it in, because if you think that 50.1% of the American voting public are far-gone Trump supporters who can’t be turned around no matter how obviously shitty trump makes things (and is currently making them,) then there’s no point in even having elections.

People cleaved to Trump in this past election not because they thought he was the bigliest greatest man with the best hamberders, they didn’t cleave to Trump because they cared about his crusade against minorities, they didn’t cleave to trump because they thought minorities were eating pets, they went for him because he dominated the narrative about the economy.

He said how his concept of a plan was going to tariff the other countries and how that would make America make money. And most of the American electorate didn’t know or care enough to check whether what he was saying was true, they assumed that hey, he was the only one saying what they felt, so obviously, he must be the guy whose gonna fix it.

But when you run on the economy and fuck it up… immediately… globally… catastrophically… and that fuck up dominates every news page, people aren’t going to be so willing to go to him on “the economy” again. And while people were (pathetically) accepting of Trump’s various scapegoats so much that they weren’t dealbreakers for voting for him, on that same token they won’t care about him deflecting blame on to said scapegoats when he fails to right the economic situation he’s just driven off a cliff.

And again, because I constantly have to reiterate this point… I’m not talking about the part of the Republican Party that are full-on Trump MAGATs. They are beyond convincing and at this point are best rendered into political irrelevance.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I like how Trump, the person who specifically, directly, and personally caused all this damage, is hiding behind "eventually".

"How will we be the most dominant country if we can't buy or sell anything?"

Trump said he didn't know. That invalidates everything else he predicts.

Milei was elected in Argentina in Dec 2023, house prices are down and inflation is down...

But nearly every other measurement of a working society are WAY down/up. Poverty is at an all time high, wages are in the gutter, homelessness and food insecurity are also higher than ever. The only ones doing "fine" in Milei's Argentina are the people who were already wealthy. His dismantling of their government and public welfare systems have not created any jobs and poverty is higher than ever.

And what do the conservatives say about all this?

"Well it takes time to fix a country that's been broken by socialism!"

But it doesn't matter how long it's been, conservative libertarian twisted MAGA ideology is a failure of even the most basic tests, causing extreme hardship for everyone who's not already wealthy. And even the middle class have lost hundreds of thousands from their life savings, all in a couple of days.

Many MAGA think all of this suffering is justified because they believe "our country is deeply broken to the core, and we needed a reset."

Do you think Trump would have gotten nearly as many votes if they told everyone they were in fact implementing Project 2025, and they were deliberately crashing the economy so the country could have a "reset"? You and I both know the answer.

But even then, nothing is being reset. The status quo will mostly remain in tact, the billionaires will still control all of the money and power. This is why fascist revolutions never work, it's a cry out from desperate people who are being oppressed, and they turn to their oppressors to guide them to a better life. They get used for war and violence and life never really improves for the average person.

Of course, socialist revolutions, taking power away from kings and lords and now billionaires, puts power back in the hands of the people.

MAGA are liars, idiots, frauds and the defrauded. It's so incredibly painful to see how idiotic some people are, defending this deliberate market crash.

[PhaelixWW]

So here's an interesting story.

AP: 2 US border inspectors are charged with taking bribes to wave in people without documents

Two U.S. border inspectors in Southern California have been charged with taking thousands of dollars in bribes to allow people to enter the country through the nation’s busiest port of entry without showing documents, prosecutors said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers Farlis Almonte and Ricardo Rodriguez were assigned to immigration inspection booths at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. They were charged after investigators found phone evidence showing they had exchanged messages with human traffickers in Mexico and discovered unexplained cash deposits into their bank accounts, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday.

Say what? Border agents allowing foreigners to come across the border illegally? For money?

They must be Democrats, right?!

Well... a casual FEC donation search seems to indicate that at least one of them is a heavy Trump/Republican supporter:



Oof.

- - - Updated - - -

Australian stock market crashed 6.3% on opening, an indication of what is to come.

Nikkei 225 lost 8% shortly after opening.

Shanghai down over 8% now, too. European markets heading for a -5% open.

Trump is just bringing it all crashing down.

History will not be kind, no sir.

[Bwgmon]

History will not be kind, no sir.

At minimum, I expect his name will go down as the single greatest embarrassment that the human race has ever produced. His enablers slightly less so.