OMFG, he is sooooo fucking stupid!!!
The patronage and bribes must already be starting to come in.
Just coming to post about that…
And it’s even stupider than that* because they’re ignoring the value of services. The US and EU apparently have pretty even trade, with manufactured goods and services taken into account - but the Trump administration is ignoring services, so there’s a “trade imbalance.”
*It occurs to me that this phrase can always be appended to the beginning of any statement about the Trump administration, because there’s always another layer of stupidity. Always.
And it’ll be pretty much equally destructive to the US economy either way. As Paul Krugman pointed out, businesses can’t deal with this kind of uncertainty. You can’t respond to a tariff if you don’t know if it’ll disappear tomorrow on a Trumpian whim. (Even if that wasn’t the case, it definitely won’t have the supposed desired effect of increasing US domestic production, because the time frame involved in building new factories and setting up whole supply chains means that the tariffs will almost certainly be gone before any of that can be completed.)
Yeah, he thinks he can bully everyone into submitting to his whims, get them to come and beg at his feet. He’s unaware that no one is in the mood (and that they realize it would be counter-productive to even try). That he’s been constantly threatening tariffs every time he wants a country to do something suggests this is the only way he knows how.
Well, he’s also an idiot, a moron, a senile dotard, a sociopath and a bully. So many dimensions!
Definitely. But as people like Paul Krugman have pointed out, that’s not the plan, because there is no plan. It’s a bunch of idiots doing stupid things, without any real knowledge of what’s going to happen. They’ll take advantage of the chaos and collapse that occurs, but they’re not smart enough to engineer it.
Yeah, on top of which even domestically produced products have supply chains that pass over US borders multiple times. (Perhaps half-a-dozen times for any parts going into a US-made automobile, for instance.) Which would seem like it would make sufficiently complex US-made goods even more expensive than simple imports, if the tariffs are hitting those parts every time they cross a border. Cars are going to be super-expensive.
But everything’s going to get hit. I’ve been going through my groceries and other routine shopping, and noting how many items are going to get hit with big tariffs. Seems like the cost of living is going to go up quite a bit more than five or even ten percent…
Hmm, I seem to remember a rumor last year that she was having an affair with Trump. Unrelated, I’m sure…
I mentioned somewhere that my wife is bracing for a huge increase in her overhead related to sugar, vanilla, cocoa and other ingredients that she cannot do without, but she makes wedding cakes and will have no problem passing those expenses on. Folks who are on a shoestring will get hit hard. Waiting to see how he manages to blame Biden or Obama for the disaster that is absolutely, predictably coming. We live a life of sufficient privilege that we will not be hurt, but we are gearing up to help the local food pantry which is seeing more clients while its budget is cut. Not exactly Blumenthal levels here, but we can certainly step up.
Also:
Here it comes. Il Douche will be livid that anyone dares to stand up to him. I can only hope Canada will not stand alone. (Looks like France is going for counter-tariffs as well. This could get ugly quick.)
The story on the PHD student at Columbia is really eye opening. Highly recommended.
I wondered how the hell they found these places to tariff that have no imports or exports, but this kinda makes sense. I’m not enough of a techy to fully parse this, but at my level of understanding, I can buy it.
Listened while I was getting ready the other morning. That story broke my heart.
It also made me wonder, “What would I add to the ‘Museum of Now’?”
My contribution would be the links to the DEI and Business Resource Groups at the company where I work. The BRG’s included Rising Leaders, ASEAN, HOLA, Abilities, Veterans, Africa, and LGBTQ+. I hope I’m not forgetting any.
It’s all so very sad.
I liked this, hoping the replies are full of comments calling out the language here. Rather than saying this is self-inflicted, it should be repeated clearly that 
and his minions are doing this to the country. Calling it suicide just makes my eye twitch for the same reason.
Let’s hope for the FO stage before we get there. 
heh… as a math-ish nerd i can’t help but be sardonically amused at the published formula behind the tariffs (presumed to be) elicited by trump-town. The two Greek symbols together are defined as having the value 1 (or rather they are reciprocals so they cancel each other out); so they were included just to fancy things up a bit? (jeez)
so yes, the Surowiecki conclusion is now ‘officially’ correct, it’s just the trade deficit (with penguins??) divided by imports to the states made into a percent
source: How to read the White House’s tariff formula
should we take any comfort in the notion that vile evil trump land is also the stupidest presidency ever? evil being more effectively evil when it isn’t stupid? @#$!
I haven’t found much about it “eye opening”. I’ve found ever part I hear about it fucking terrifying.
I’m still sort of forumulating a theory in the back of my head that all the 20s-30s fascists were also very stupid, it’s just that the outcome of their being in power was so dire, we forget how dumb they were and focus on the “evil” part… because the outcome was genocide. But it’s not like the Nazis based their ideology on anything smarter than what Trump and the current crop of authoritarians are… white supremacy, misogyny, bullying on a state level, dumb economic ideas, etc, it’s all pretty much the same warmed over dumb shit that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. 
I think that’s pretty accurate. I mean, Hitler made a number of stupid moves during the war. Chief among them, invading Russia, probably. And Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor was pretty stupid, too. I guess the real question is, why does the fascist brand of stupidity sound so attractive to so many people?
But this was all in just one day, so much winning!
He is always the First One.
