No arguments there. I certainly expect tariffs will lead to inflation getting much worse.

If it hits major economic metrics in a way that makes him nervous, watch out for what he might do to the Fed. So long to a relatively-depoliticized institution. He was already grumbling about them in 2020. Hell he might just lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess we’ll see.

>Hell he might just lead with politicizing the Fed. Guess we’ll see.

Why would he not? It's not like he respects institutions such as the Supreme Court. And what repercussions has he ever faced for the destruction of norms and guardrails? If anything, he gains even more support.

I’m banking on the resulting stupid-low interest rates to refi my mortgage to help survive the guaranteed crash after. Not even joking. Great sympathy to those for whom that’s not an option. I figure there is an outside chance that such a move will fail to drop rates to the level it normally would because banks will also be worried, in which case I guess I’m just screwed as much as everyone else.

Damn whoever used that “may you live in interesting times” curse once to many times.

My fear is that something like this will happen, a bunch of well off people will take advantage, the lower classes will get clobbered much more than they have so far and transition to actual unrest.

What disrespect has he shown, ever, for the Supreme Court? And if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return, why wouldn't you destroy those norms? After all, I voted for him on that basis.

> all of our tax dollars to NATO

Total US spending on all defense, not just NATO, is ~$900 billion or ~13-14% of federal spending. NATO has a total annual budget of less than $4 billion and we cover something like 15% of that budget, less than 0.001% of military spending and some infinitesimal portion of overall spend.

> for nothing in return

The US gains incomparable wealth from controlling the global prime currency. Part of the enforcement of this primacy is 750 military bases in 80 countries, giving the US a force projection capability greater than any empire in human history. For the US, NATO is just a just an organizational tool to manage resources among it's allies.

Also, the US is the biggest defense exporter, by a large margin: 14B$, with 3B$ for France in second place.

So many of those dollars spent by NATO (by the US and it's partners) come back to the US economy.

> or ~13-14% of federal spending

it's actually 50% percentage of "discretionary spending" (meaning the spending that the government gets to decide how to allocate with without changing social security laws, so essentially the "federal budget"

> And if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return

All your tax dollars? How much do you think the US spends on defense without giving anything to NATO? Do you think that’ll somehow decrease if you leave NATO? It just means you’ll have to handle everything yourself. At least currently the US gets to charter about half of all their craft from various European allies.

Not for the justices, but for the institution of the Supreme Court. He files frivolous lawsuits and appeals designed to give his appointees the opportunity to legislate from the bench (e.g., "official acts"). He appoints blatantly partisan judges at all levels of the federal judiciary. And he sabotaged the FBI's inquiry into Kavanaugh's history, which is standard for any appointee at that level, by having any concerns be routed to the White House instead of handled by actual investigators. In short, he's demolished any pretense that the Court exists to enforce laws fairly, and has turned it into an unapologetic arm of the MAGA Republican party.

> if the norms mean giving all of our tax dollars to NATO for nothing in return

We do not give our tax dollars to NATO, at least not in any meaningful way. NATO's entire budget as an organization is about $4B/year, which includes valuable shared command/control systems. For the most part, we fund the American military, and we commit to using it in concert with our allies in certain scenarios.

In exchange, we get incredibly valuable hard and soft power. We get access to land in Europe to use as bases, which are staging areas for potential worldwide threats (e.g., an imperialist Russia). We get shared intelligence. We get goodwill with the rest of the West, so that they'll join our trade pacts. We get commitments of Polish tanks and British spies and French manpower if there ever to be a hot war, so that the US can focus on what it does best (air and naval superiority).

But also, you're the only one who brought up NATO. There are myriad unrelated norms that Trump broke the first time around, and will certainly break further this time, that make the institution of "the American government" less able to serve its purpose. Norms like, a president can't pardon himself. A president can't use his position to direct foreign powers to patronize his own businesses. A president can't summon a violent mob to Washington to overturn an election. A president can't conspire with state legislatures and militias to disregard the results of their states' elections. A non-sitting president can't steal classified documents, and can't have ongoing secret communications with a foreign power. A president keeps special counsel at arm's reach. A president shouldn't use tax policy to explicitly punish states that don't vote for him.

Everything you wrote in your first paragraph sounds pretty boilerplate. You can't seriously say he has gone above and beyond Biden, Obama, or Bush. And if he's not unique, then your vendetta seems personal, which makes you seem hypocritical.

So your answer to multiple specific examples is "nah, the other guys probably do it too, trust me bro"? Yes, Trump went beyond all recent presidents, in pretty much every way.

Sabotaging the FBI's background check is absolutely without comparison. It was corrupt and inexcusable.

While yes, all presidents will tend to appoint justices they agree with, you cannot in good faith say that there is any comparison between Jackson and Sotomayor on the one hand, and Kavanaugh and Barrett on the other, in terms of qualifications to sit on the bench. And that's just at the Supreme Court level - the whole affair in Florida with Aileen Cannon is another level of obscene.

The "official acts" decision is completely without legal historical merit, and was made up out of whole cloth to allow Trump's appointees to protect him from any consequences from the judicial branch (remember that whole idea of three co-equal branches of government?). No other president has dared make so bold a claim, both because the idea that the Court should be subservient to the president is clearly at odds with how the American government has worked for almost its entire history, and because they didn't have personal crimes to cover up.

I do have a vendetta against Trump, but you have the cause and effect backwards. I don't think he's a bad president because I hate him, I hate him because I think he's a bad president who is dangerous to me personally, to the United States as an institution, and to the continuation of the human race. But perhaps even more than that, I hate him because he has enabled and legitimized pathetically transparent bad-faith arguments like this.

I think someone who really respected the institution wouldn't snatch a Justice appointment away from another President.

Your "for nothing in return" is actually for the capitalization of the US dollar as the world reserve currency. If you thought price inflation was bad after Trump's last spree of helicopter money, just wait until other countries' USD reserves are being dumped in earnest.

Dump in favor of what? Euros? Yuan? Gold? For better or worse there's still no practical alternative to the dollar as the world reserve currency, regardless of how the supply is inflated. The BRICS group keeps talking about creating a new currency for international trade but they can't agree on anything specific.

The EU seems like a more stable thing than the US these days. Japan has always been a stable thing. The west can’t really do India or China, but those would also make better options than the US right now. It’s not unprecedented for people to flee the USD.

You're missing the point. There's not enough Euro or Yen denominated assets to make that work.

https://www.nber.org/digest/apr20/why-euro-hasnt-become-inte...

Could always move to a basket of currencies, that’s been proposed before

That's just an accounting problem. Once the countries start dumping dollars and buying Euros, the ECB can just create new Euros out of thin air to prevent it from appreciation.

Your own link basically says: "dollar is more stable and scalable, so people use it".

All of the above with some real-time algorithmic settlement wizardry tying them together? Plenty of neoliberal looting to be had on the transition from countries holding high masses of assets to lighter weight just-in-time financial engineering, too.

View the tariffs as carbon tax that represent the true cost of goods being produced in a coal heavy country and transported on boats that burn the most dirty kind of oil possible. It makes the whole thing look quite nicer and the economic cost a bit more worth it.

The per-ton CO2 emissions of those boats is still much, much lower than by truck or rail. Large ships are insanely efficient at moving cargo; that's why it's so economical to transport stuff across the planet.

Isn't the question, a/ travels across the globe + rails and truck vs b/ maybe rails + truck ?

Not arguing that the carbon tax is legit. It hasn't been proven yet that it isn't just a way to collect money while pretending to do something about the environment.

Well but maybe Chad in Nebraska would appreciate buying a Halloween decoration for $0.50 on wish!?!

We should maybe just reconsider in general what kind of thing is economically viable

He and his family certainly would if all they can afford to make it a special weekend is plastic crap from the dollar shop.

The real concern isn't that consumerism is threaten, as you seem to indicate that could be a good thing in fact.

I consider the U.S slowly becoming 19th century China.

I would like to remain positive but it might even be worse.

Globalisation, the U.S economy has been relying on developing countries to provide raw and finished produce. Not only de-industrialized, the population suffers from some superiority complex that makes it even hard to accept it may have to learn how to work and make stuff. Betting on AI to solve the universe, a migration to Mars.

Orders of magnitude more potent Pharmaceuticals. fantanyl is a hundred times more potent than Opium, a hundred times cheaper, and far easier to smuggle and conceal.

The U.S got to wake up, not just reconsider its consumerism culture.

Now factor in the manufacturing CO2 in a country with lax pollution regulations vs in the US...

There are no roads or railroads between China and US so the bulk efficiency by ship can not be directly compared. The first rule in decreasing emissions are reduce, so reducing the need to transport goods half way around the world are an effective measure against emissions.

Ship fuel (also called bunker fuel) is the dirties form of fuel there is and goes way beyond CO2 emissions. It is heavily contaminated and because of incomplete combustion it contribute heavily to pollution in water, atmosphere, and coast cities. The environmental impacts of heavy fuel oil spills also converts the ships into mobile nature disasters. The costs from oil spills generally spills over to society and people who live near the cost, rather than being carried by the shipping company. Collecting the real cost of that risk should be part of the product price when importing goods.

Tariffs are fungible, so the same tariffs could be used for the purpose of protectionism, geo-political stability, CO2 emissions in transportation, CO2 emissions in production, oil spill insurance costs, air/water pollution, regulative differences in worker rights, or differences in product safety. It can make the market competition more fair or unfair, and depending on what goals one have the definition of fair and unfair will likely change. People who lean both left and right can find arguments both in favor and against, likely at the same time given the fungible nature of tariffs.

Thus if one want to look at it on the bright side, pick the benefits of the political goals that talks to you.

In retrospect it's baffling why Dems didn't hammer home this point more: Tariffs will increase prices.

Suggesting tariffs was his way of saying "stuffs so messed up I will make radical change" to the angry working class. It also harks back to the early 20th century which he loves.

The Dems didn't really have an inroad to that demographic. Suggesting federally granted home buying credits just sounded like another financial scheme from on high and missed the mark entirely imho; there was no bigger economic discussion happening there.

No, tariffs are his way of saying "magic wand make economy good" to people who don't (but can and should) know better.

All of this assumes that policy suggestions from democrats can reach republicans. Because of filter bubbles this is simply no longer the case.

It is wild to me that GOP has become the working people's party somehow.

Probably because they don't have much leverage in this area, with Biden continuing some of Trumps policies on tariffs.

Targeted tariffs as part of a trade war is significantly different than the proposed universal tariffs to "eliminate taxes" that he's proposed.

AKA: we figured out how to pass a consumption tax which disproportionately hurts poor people without calling it that because we know it's universally unpopular. When billionaires effective tax rate drops to what will probably be 1%, the wheels are going to REALLY fall off.

It isn't the poor that fund either political parties.

Not their campaigns, no. But the labor of the poor make the world go around. And their votes count just as much as a billionaires.

> And their votes count just as much as a billionaires.

Billionaires fund, and in some cases directly craft, the narratives that shape the voter’s perception of the political landscape.

Solid point, I just wanted to emphasize the potential power of those at the bottom. Sadly they also aren't educated as thoroughly and so become prey to be exploited.

For this they would need to unite. Those who fund to influence are doing so, so that it never happens.

Isn't it Biden that increased tariffs on certain imports from a certain country to 100%?

Just EVs, and how many Chinese EVs were we importing before the tariff increase? All I can think of are some Polestar models and the entry level model 3.

How many will not be imported due to tariffs, squeezing customers to buy them at double the price it would be, or go for an overpriced locally made EV.

Musk admitting out of the 10 largest EV manufacturers, 9 are not in the U.S.

I bought a German EV, so that wasn't Chinese made. BYD can always open factories in Mississippi, just like Japan did, which will probably happen eventually unless our relationship with China becomes really really bad.

Because the entirety of the Trumpist response is “nuh-uh.” Watch the videos of people giving explanations of tariffs to attendees of Trump rallies. “That can’t be right, he wouldn’t be doing it then” is essentially all the deeper anyone will go. Almost none of the people who support him don’t think beyond their delusion that he has their interests in mind.

You're saying 50% of the US are stupid and those same 50% or so are the Trump voters.

Somehow that does not compute.

During which presidency did prices go up more? During Trump's last "Tariff" presidency or during the supposed anti-Tariff Biden?

"Watch videos of" is why we're banning TikTok. Just kidding. Or maybe not. I can find stupid people in any camp (well, in some more than others) and make a video about how clueless they are. It's super patronizing to just say your opponents are stupid and IMO one of the reasons why the democrats lost these elections (no shortage of other reasons).

The delusions don't stop at any demographic or party unfortunately. We just live in a post truth, post civil discussion, polarized, society.

I’m saying about 50% of the people who voted in the last three elections—not 50% of the population—are stupid, yes. And I think that’s borne out by the absolutely terrible and destructive policies articulated by the people they voted for.

What’s so hard to understand about that?

The 50% voting for Trump aren't all stupid. Though many are indoctrinated, taught to embrace confirmation bias, the bandwagon effect, and to fear the other.

IME they're a diverse group who all bought some just-so stories explaining why life was so much better 4yo. Rose tinted glasses and a repeated call to look to the past to some idealized time that never existed.

All that reinforced by a lot of loud distractions to avoid the awkward fact that the pandemic was a disaster, the tax cuts ballooned the deficit more than Biden, benefited mostly the rich, insiders lining their pockets, racking up pardons, and foreign policy that was openly corrupt.

IIRC it was the Trump administration that was mostly responsible for getting a vaccine out in record time.

It's really hard to reflect on the pandemic. There were certainly some funny anecdotes like bleach or horse medicine but there were also some serious professionals who tried their best. We also don't really know what the other possible outcomes could have been given other actions.

I'm sure plenty of rich were lining up their pockets in the Biden presidency as well. Do you have some sort of resource/evidence that there were higher level of corruption during the Trump presidency? Something systemic, not anecdotal. Trump supporters say Biden is corrupt. What is an objective measure here?

Running a deficit during tough times (pandemic) could be the right thing to do.

> Do you have some sort of resource/evidence that there were higher level of corruption during the Trump presidency?

Okay. How about leveraging the presidency to make a boatload of money from his private business.

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre...

Also, the Ukraine call, Georgia call, Egypt bribe, flagrant nepotism, that one time he denied funding to the post office because he thought mail in ballots would harm his re-election.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53772526

Appointing people to agencies who wanted to dismantle them instead of carrying out their mission like Betsy DeVos for Dept of Edu and like Robert F Kennedy will apparently do for HHS because fluoride and vaccines are sus

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre...

Creating an atmosphere where loyalty is more important than founding principles which is an environment in which corruption can flourish.

That time he incited a mob to storm the capital because Mike Pence wouldn’t over turn the election results like he wanted.

> [...] the Ukraine call [...]

Eh, maybe he shouldn't have been impeached for that call. President Biden's son had a strangely lucrative position, which he appeared not to be qualified for. And Biden was very involved in pressuring the Ukraine government to fire a prosecutor who was investigating that same energy company. There's a lot of public corruption in Ukraine, which was one of the factors leading to the election of their current president (according to what I've heard anyway).

This doesn't mean that Biden is definitely corrupt, but it does look very suspicious, and seems worthwhile to investigate. Our country is sending a lot of money to Ukraine. We deserve to know everything here.

Already investigated by a republican committee.

See references 14, 15, 16, 17 of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden%E2%80%93Ukraine_conspi...

> A joint investigation by two Republican Senate committees released in September 2020 found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden. A sweeping Republican House committee investigation of the Biden family has found no wrongdoing by December 2023.

And sure, it’s weird Hunter was involved but it’s also weird the guy who brags about being rich still won’t show us his tax returns despite it being something every other president has done and gone as far to make up stories about the IRS while at the same time saying he’ll release them when he can. Joe released his tax returns, it’s all on the table.

Joe appears to be held to a much higher standard than Trump. Like… if Joe asked Kamala to overturn the election results like Trump did to Pence the republicans would be outraged and try to bar him from ever being president again, not that he would because he’s a good person at heart and for which he’ll get no praise, because it’s obvious not to do that and we don’t give out brownie points for abiding common sense.

It’s only bad when the other guy does it which is also why they latched onto Joe’s garbage comment even though Trump has called his opponents, trash, vermin, sick people, the enemy within and encouraged his supporters to call them satan worshippers and gets a free pass. Oh snowflake dems hate being called enemies of the state. He’s doesn’t mean it he’s just trolling the abuse of presidential powers like any reputable statesman would.

But we’re so inundated by the constant flood of news that one scandal replaces itself and it’s hard to remember all the other ones that came before it. We’ve grown numb to it. At this point I’ll just be happy if we make it to the next election in one piece.

> And sure, it’s weird Hunter was involved but it’s also weird the guy who brags about being rich still won’t show us his tax returns […]

You’re so quick to drop the question of the Biden family’s involvement in Ukraine and you pivot to Trump’s tax return, but the billions of our tax dollars and lives lost in Ukraine now make that a MUCH more important issue than Trump’s tax returns.

Congressional investigations blah blah blah, obviously they can’t get anywhere. Trump was impeached for trying to get information right from the source, and it was very stupid. We should get that information, hopefully he takes another shot at it. We’ll see what happens.

Loyalty over credentials, here we go again. Did you say the last election was stolen? Great, welcome to office.

Tulsi Gabbard - Director of National Intelligence

Matt Gaetz - Attorney General

Pete Hegeseth - Secretary of Defense

Marco Rubio - Secretary of State

Trump's presidency was as much the cause for inflation as Biden. The two main drivers (apart from exogenous supply chain issues) were massive stimulus and keeping rates low for too long. In true Trump fashion, he promised "the biggest" stimulus and effectively forced the dems to promise and deliver an unprecedented package. Trump also signed into effect massive stimulus himself during his term and raised the debt/GDP to historic levels which was inflationary. Trump appointed Powell who stood behind the decisions to keep rates low even as inflation was rapidly growing. What's funny is I think Powell actually ended up doing a decent job and that a lot (maybe not all) of that stimulus was good. The problem with Trump is he makes long-term bad decisions to appease to his less educated voter base. He does this on a level I've never seen a politician do it. The only thing he cares about people admiring him and only him. That's why the minute someone like Powell gets a bit of spotlight, he starts getting jealous and puts them down. He would have done better as a medieval ruler than the leader of the world's largest democratic bureaucracy. Like a mob boss he is all about loyalty and pays little attention to the abilities of those he leads.

I dunno - I heard about tariffs in every single Harris speech. I don't get ads because of my location, but they were clearly saying it.

I think the issue is that people don't know what tariffs even are, call it a tax increase and it hits home more.