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The whole of Trump's presidency to date has been one HUMONGOUS double standard.
Ukraine have always wanted peace and were the victims of Putin. Trump is only asking for concessions from one side. It is easy to make peace giving away another countries rights and taking their resources.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoSavingByTheBell
Seriously.
This isn't to pick on Brock. But this is totally symbolic of what the MAGA crowd is made of. Here we're seeing a 50-some year-old man celebrating what some of us consider to be a shameful televised spectacle in the White House, between the President of the United States and the leader of another country.
Forget what was said, which is basically Trump ignoring the plain facts that Ukraine was invaded by Russia who is clearly the aggressor in this case.
This a grown man, leader of a country, throwing the concepts of civility, dignity, class, and humanity completely out the window. And the MAGA crowd celebrates it. Brock isn't the only one. ALL of MAGA world celebrates it.
What this basically illustrates is that we've reached a new low in our standards.
Just when you think Trump can't possibly do anything worse... he goes ahead and does it.
In any case, I'll just keep repeating this quote... probably for the umpteenth time during Trump's unfortunate term.
https://i.imgflip.com/9mccfb.jpg
Trump just wants the war over so he can get on with what he really wants to do which is get close to Russia. China as well at some point I'm sure. America currently does about eleven billion dollars a year with Russia and I'm not sure American CEOs will be queing to set up any kind of operations over there with the amount of people who keep falling out of windows, the general corruption and danger and so on, not to mention the lack of money over there in their piddling kleptocratic economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterUkraine have always wanted peace and were the victims of Putin. Trump is only asking for concessions from one side. It is easy to make peace giving away another countries rights and taking their resources.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
Europe on the other hand does one point six trillion dollars a year business with America, you'd think he would want to encourage new business in a part of the world where America is already established and the economy is bigger than America's but apparently not, it looks like as soon as he can get the Ukraine thing sorted out with European troops keeping the peace he's going to start a trade war with Europe.
It's all just an incoherent mess.
WW2 influenced the thinking of a critical mass of human beings, made them aware of how things can quickly go from peace to war, the horrific effects war has on the countries participating and the elites in the west all made compromises and alliances to try and create a world where it wouldn't happen again.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFanQuote:
Originally Posted by NoSavingByTheBell
Seriously.
This isn't to pick on Brock. But this is totally symbolic of what the MAGA crowd is made of. Here we're seeing a 50-some year-old man celebrating what some of us consider to be a shameful televised spectacle in the White House, between the President of the United States and the leader of another country.
Forget what was said, which is basically Trump ignoring the plain facts that Ukraine was invaded by Russia who is clearly the aggressor in this case.
This a grown man, leader of a country, throwing the concepts of civility, dignity, class, and humanity completely out the window. And the MAGA crowd celebrates it. Brock isn't the only one. ALL of MAGA world celebrates it.
What this basically illustrates is that we've reached a new low in our standards.
Just when you think Trump can't possibly do anything worse... he goes ahead and does it.
In any case, I'll just keep repeating this quote... probably for the umpteenth time during Trump's unfortunate term.
https://i.imgflip.com/9mccfb.jpg
Gradually though over the decades the knowledge and awareness of all of this got bred out of people and they've defaulted back to humanity's normal state which is fear, loathing and ignorance. In America the first signs were the Reagan era which saw elites going all out to grab a bigger share of the pie and so on. What sped the whole thing up was mass immigration. Capitalism became a victim of its own success here creating so much growth that lots of new workers were needed. The subsequent immigration to fill those jobs has become an issue that demagogic politicians can take advantage of and get elected.
We're now basically back in about the nineteen twenties. All we need is a nice big recession and we're back in the nineteen thirties. They're working on that.
It isn't going to be an exact repeat of events last century on the exact timescale but what we are doing is creating the perfect conditions for something potentially a lot worse to happen again.
Guests are paying millions of dollars to dine and meet with President Donald Trump at special events held at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Business leaders can secure a one-on-one meeting with the president at Mar-a-Lago for $5 million, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meetings. At a so-called candlelight dinner held as recently as this past Saturday, prospective Mar-a-Lago guests were asked to spend $1 million to reserve a seat, according to an invitation obtained by WIRED.
“You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump,” the invitation reads, under a “MAGA INC.” header. MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a super PAC that supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “Additional details provided upon RSVP. RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.”
https://www.wired.com/story/people-p...mpaign=aud-dev
The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to shed as much as 50 percent of its staff, according to four people familiar with the matter, a significant cut that could jeopardize the agency’s ability to complete its basic mission of collecting taxes.
The I.R.S. started the Trump administration with roughly 100,000 employees. It has already laid off more than 7,000 people who had recently joined the agency and had fewer job protections, and thousands more have taken Elon Musk’s offer to resign. Those cuts, as well as normal attrition, are expected to count toward the Trump administration’s goal of halving the number of people who work at the I.R.S., two of the people said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/u...d=bsky-nytimes
Here is what an IRS cafeteria in Austin looked like just a few years ago. With an understaffed IRS, people were waiting years for these returns to be processed and refunds issued No one picked up when you called with questions. Destroying the agency means more photos like this:
https://x.com/NatashaRSarin/status/1897085986817167438
It seems like an efficient government would want to efficiently collect taxes. Especially from high earners. They're going to fire all the people who audit top earners so top earners will all be able to cheat on their taxes with nobody at the IRS able to even know how they're doing it:
https://x.com/AnnysEdits/status/1896718021730668827
Trump is also selling off all big government buildings. So the government will have to pay rent to anybody lucky enough to be allowed to buy these buildings in perpetuity. Nice business for whoever gets them. By the end of four years they'll have sold everything they can for parts, have looted the entire government, treasury, central bank, you name it.
All Americans except for the richest 20% will pay more in tariffs than they will get back from Trump's tax cuts.
https://x.com/SteveRattner/status/1897120010482671712
Great reviews on the new USMCA. Thank you! Mexico and Canada will be wonderful partners in Trade (and more) long into the future.
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status...39656066842625
There it is: Trump announces the US will not be enforcing its new shell company registry, which is the single-best tool to counter kleptocracy.
https://bsky.app/profile/cjcmichel.b.../3ljht57pkkc2k
Keep scrolling.
Just so everyone is clear -- this is using your taxpayer money to buy up crypto currency so that the price goes up for those holding it.
https://x.com/Malinowski/status/1896407545721618942
BREAKING: Elon Musk called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" in an interview with Joe Rogan.
https://x.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1895655463255248904
Reporter: Veterans make up 30% of the federal workforce? Are you tracking how many veterans have been fired so far? Trump: Yes we are. We take good care of our veterans
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895183301973025134
Trump is truly despicable but his successor Vance could be even worse. Starmer told him off in the most diplomatic terms about describing Britain as not militarily meaningful.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2709393.html
Vance is playing his role to an alarming extreme. But it can't come as a surprise. Trump does not hire/accept anyone with a mind of their own. If you DO have a mind of your own, you have to check in your brain at the "Trump Indoctrination Clinic" and get fitted with a Trump lookalike brain.
Remember that Pence seemed like a nice and level-headed enough man before he became Trump's VP. Then for four years he became Trump's puppet, echoing every piece of royal stupidity coming out of his boss's mouth. Finally, when Trump lost the 2020 election, Pence got some of his backbone back, and pushed back against the Big Stolen Election Lie. Much to his detriment, as Trump called him every name in the book.
As opposed to Trump, Vance does have a legitimate education and more than two brain cells inside his head. But he knows full well that the ONLY way to a future White House bid, is to become Trump's mouthpiece. Problem is he has taken the job a little too seriously, and to a disgusting extreme.
Trump infamously promised to "drain the swamp" back in 2016. Yet he's proven that he only accepts being surrounded by weak-spined ass-kissers. If you have the gall to disagree with Trump... you're dog meat.
How would a post-Trump Vance be? Hard to tell. Sometimes these adopted personalities can find their way into the bloodstream, become permanent changes.
will you & your family sign up to go & fight for ukraine on the front lines?Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
Yes, me and my boys are ready. :badass:Quote:
Originally Posted by TICwill you & your family sign up to go & fight for ukraine on the front lines?Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
bullshit
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing
How things are these days:
These guys are fucking scumbag pimps. They should be beaten into fucking comas the first time they go out in public anywhere but instead a huge chunk of the population seem to think they're heroes. The fucking vice president follows them on twitter. Here's Exhibit A that something is really wrong with humanity:
https://x.com/speechboy71/status/1898395292220743916
More exhibits:
https://x.com/DrewPavlou/status/1898028379258978760
https://x.com/DelGroyp/status/1897432270463803800
Here's why I'm retiring:
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1897757500251705531
Given long enough these fuckers are going to crash the economy. I'm not talking about the current trade/stock market stuff, I'm talking serious damage. When it happens, do you think Trump is going to take the blame for it? He will not. He'll find scapegoats. The scapegoats for economic catastrophe have traditionally been the Jews but there's a wrinkle with Trump. He's actually friends with a lot of them, his daughter is married to a member of the tribe. Globalists is basically shorthand for Jews but Trump will look further afield.
Back in the day George Soros became famous by shorting sterling and blew the pound out of the European exchange rate mechanism, earning a fortune. If Britain had had a Trump style government back then he could easily have been accused of "betting against Britain", turned into a hate figure and prosecuted by a corrupt British judicial system. This kind of thing is what historically has happened to financial speculators when authoritarian governments need scapegoats for their criminality and incompetence.
But Soros wasn't the only person to make money from this. A whole bunch of people bet against the pound. One of those people was me! And I'm still going. These days I have other people do the nuts and bolts of deals but I tell them what to buy and what to sell and at what prices. I'm still doing the same job I was back then effectively. Whether it's stock market movements or interest rates or commodities or currencies. You can easily see a future situation where epic ongoing criminality, incompetence, lack of regulation and son on leads to an economic disater. And the people who speculated that this disaster would happen? Betting against America.
And I'd be an easy mark. Foreign, a list of haters a mile long a lot of whom are MAGA bandwagoneers these days, a private life the media would have a field day with. Easy to turn into a hate figure and I'd be off to prison. And it wouldn't be a white collar tennis prison with these fuckers either would it. It would be great theatre sending the people who crashed the economy to a federal pen. So fuck that, I'm out.
There's a chance this doesn't happen. Endless things could happen. Trump could die and get replaced by a Jew hater. Endless permutations. But not worth any risk on my behalf. They're going to fuck things up for sure and they're going to need scapegoats.
Right now we're hearing that the economy is in a transition period, and it is, from fifty straight months of job growth, a four hundred percent increase in manufacturing construction and the best back to back years for the markets this century to a fucking mess. There'll be some short term disruption but long term it'll all be sunshine and rainbows and peole just have to put up with the temporary hits to the economy.
But then temporary goes on and on and the people running the show still have to take out more and more of the deep state and the swamp that's preventing the sunshine and rainbows. Eventually we find out that the whole point of everything is actually to get rid of all the regime enemies and we had to sacrifice the old economy in order to do it.
Here I leave you with the wise words of Tucker Carlson, telling you what he actually thinks when he thinks nobody is listening:
He went on to say that Trump was good at "destroying things. He's the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong."
https://www.businessinsider.nl/tucke...election-lies/
Donald Trump is snatching Western defeat from the jaws of victory in Ukraine. He is extending a lifeline to a struggling war criminal running out of ways to fund his mischief.
The Kremlin may “have all the cards” in Trump’s mind, but that is only true at the most superficial level, and mostly not true at all. Russia’s deformed war economy is kept afloat by unsustainable hidden debts.
Harvard professor Craig Kennedy says banks have been coerced into off-budget loans to defence contractors worth up to $250bn (£193bn), disguising the true costs of the war and “creating the preconditions for a systemic credit crisis”.
Russia’s “rainy day” welfare fund is running out of gold. Its liquid assets are down to 2pc of GDP. Ex-finance minister Mikhail Zadornov said the country would be unable to prosecute the war within six months if oil prices fell further, which is highly likely as Opec+ raises output into an incipient global glut. West Siberian light crude is already down to $62.65 a barrel.
Putin has lost his regional ally in Syria. His mercenaries in the Sahel are overstretched and in crisis. He was unable to back his Armenian proteges against predatory ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. He needs pre-modern North Korean troops and Iranian drones to fight his war.
He has conquered less than 1pc of Ukraine’s territory over the last year and has failed to capture a single town of importance. It is hard to exaggerate the strategic criminality of Trump’s pro-Putin pivot at this juncture.
FK TRUMP
Ibrahim Traoré - The president of Burkina Faso is fast turning into one of the greatest leader alive.
Fighting for his people against outsiders who want to exploit the country for it's riches. At the tender age of 36
https://youtu.be/0L3HMluhQNA
Dodging assassination attempts left and right, consolidating his region, and elevating the position of his people. White western nations are trying to off him but not word from the United Nations, not one word from ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) not one word from the African Union, not one word from the international courts.
He's reduces ministers and politicians salaries by 30%. He#s increased workers salaries by 50% and refuses to accept a presidential salary.
https://youtu.be/OI6KxRds6V8
https://youtu.be/cZ0mHOUemk8
Giving the middle finger to the West, and got rid of the Western puppets and thieves in government. Banned the use of the French language taught in schools. Now kids will grow speaking their native tongue
Locked up the monsters that terrorize his citizens making their lives unbearable
Dresses like a man should. Dresses like he's ready for war. No singing. No dancing. Just business.
https://www.lipstickalley.com/attach...6-png.6466226/
https://www.lipstickalley.com/attach...9-png.6466235/
At 36 years old, Ibrahim Traoré has already:
- EXPELLED French troops from Burkina Faso
- BANNED Uranium exports to France and the US
- ALLIED with neighbouring Niger and Mali who have done the same
- REFUSED any type of "aid"
This century, Africa will develop ITSELF with its OWN resources.
Burkina Faso is a fantastic example of a secular country working towards a decolonized future for their people, the RIGHT way.
FK TRUMP
https://www.trtafrika.com/africa/bur...ident-14479334
Kudos to Traore for having an anti-colonialist mentality. In today's world, where Trump uses intimidation to bully other world leaders, it's nice to know some won't be bullied. Say what you will about outgoing PM Justin Trudeau of Canada. But he was way too wimpish to handle the bullying moron that is Trump. Bullies only understand when they're smacked in the mouth. THEN they learn to respect.
Traore is super young. Hopefully he'll gain the wisdom needed to make lasting improvements in his country for the good of his people.
Trump has some views
Trump playing down the security breach that saw a journalist invited into a Signal group chat where he reported seeing national security officials plan airstrikes in Yemen is a complete joke. He accused Hillary for the same thing and led to her ultimately losing the election 2016.
Vance and the others disdain for Europe is equally shocking. There is only transactional relationship. They are lining their own pockets and securing power for themselves.
Now they are going to ask Musk for tech support. Jokers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Master
Trump is all about DOUBLE STANDARDS. Only MAGA cultists fail to see this.
There's the security breach.
Then there's also this:
https://i.imgflip.com/9op0z2.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing
https://i.ibb.co/35v1KxfS/bafkreihy3...csql5ykvpq.jpg
I was hoping Kirkland was exaggerating about Trump and MAGA but it is all true. USA is living in a facism world. They have taken over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWraNczzTI&t=2s
It's almost impossible to exaggerate about Trump at this point. His wrecking of the U.S. democratic way of life simply cannot be overstated.
I sympathize with those affected by Trump who have never supported him.
But I have ZERO sympathy for those former Trump supporters suddenly waking up and realizing what the rest of the world knew even before Trump was first elected back in 2016.
I've loathed Trump since his days with Celebrity Apprentice. With age and experience, one learns to analyze personalities and make intelligent opinions as to how someone would fare in important positions, such as POTUS.
Once again...
https://i.imgflip.com/9oyhjg.jpg
This image would not be out of place in World War 2 concentration camp run by the Nazi.
Sick that this is now normal.
https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset...le&format=webp
Admittedly that is a very impacting image in a bad way.
But I feel it must also be mentioned that the initiatives of the El Salvador government, in particular, President Nayib Bukele, have worked wonders in a country previously ravaged by gang warfare. Having never lived in such an environment, I can only imagine how it must feel like to live in fear of getting murdered any time you go out into the street. News of gangs taking over whole towns were commonplace back then. The United States would periodically round up gang members who had made their way to the States, and deport them back to El Salvador, where they would continue the endless cycle. It's like garbage. Nobody wants it in THEIR landfill.
While it's true that prisoners should not be denied their basic civil rights in prison... it's also true that only a harsh, no-nonsense approach will work to eliminate the cancer of gang warfare. I saw a documentary on this prison once (Terrorism Confinement Center). Although I'm sure they swept the floors and made everything pretty for the TV cameras before they arrived... enough was said and explained during the documentary that at least I was satisfied that we're not dealing with some kind of 3rd world dungeon.
While some people criticize Bukele and his approach, I for one think other countries with similar problems could copy their example to improve life for their citizens.
Fascist state do this.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen studying at Tufts University, was taken into federal custody Tuesday, the university said, in the latest apparent example of the Trump administration targeting students with pro-Palestinian views.
Ozturk is the holder of a valid student visa, Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk’s lawyer, said in a statement, and was detained Tuesday by agents with the Department of Homeland Security.
"Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national who was maintaining valid F-1 status as a PhD student at Tufts University," Khanbabai said in the statement. "Rumeysa was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast on the evening of March 25th when she was detained near her home in Somerville, MA by DHS agents. We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her."
As of Tuesday evening, Ozturk was listed on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website as being held at the South Louisiana Processing Center in Basile.
Last year, Ozturk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts Daily, the university’s newspaper, criticizing Tufts for its failure to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
Canary Mission, a group that monitors people it says promote antisemitism on college campuses, posted a picture of Ozturk on its website, saying she "engaged in anti-Israel activism in March 2024."
In January, President Trump signed an executive order to “combat anti-Semitism.” Since then the administration has targeted several students for deportation.
In an email to students on Tuesday, Tufts said that administrators were told that Ozturk’s visa had been terminated and were trying “to confirm whether that information is true.”
"The university had no pre-knowledge of this incident and did not share any information with federal authorities prior to the event, and the location where this took place is not affiliated with Tufts University," the school wrote.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tu...d=BingNewsSerp
Musk is disgustingly buying votes. He is giving away $1m cheques ahead of Wisconsin's Supreme Court election.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standar...b5b51.jpg.webp
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7v3jj5xy9o
Elon is handing out million dollar cheques for votes in an offseason judge election in Wisconsin which is straight up illegal but a district judge has blocked the Wisconsin AG from prosecuting him. It's basically banana republic judicial system in America now. Oh, and you can hand out million dollar cheques to buy votes but people handing out bottles of water to voters waiting hours in line in the heat in heavily black districts in the south have been sent to prison for interfering in elections.
See also Trump issuing pardons for people who have paid him millions in contributions, a guy represented by his Attorney General's brother, the fact his AG is still owrking as a lobbyist although unregistered as ethics laws don't apply to her, Trump firing prosecutors who were prosecuting people paying him money:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/t...j-independence
also this:
https://bsky.app/profile/sethcotlar..../3llploeism22j
oh oh also this:
https://x.com/CREWcrew/status/1905347871349899385
nineteen foreign countries paying Trump money directly. That's nineteen now. Just wait a year.
If this shit was going on under a Democratic president the GOP would be melting down over the airwaves daily. You can imagine what they'd be saying. And that's how you get to voters these days. The GOP turn small change bullshit into the end of America anytime a Democrat is in office. If the Democrats can't do anything with the daily corruption going on now they fucking deserve to lose. Here's how fucked the Democrats are and I agree with all of the stuff in this article:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...arris-00230631
Trump also talking about how he won't defy a judicial ruling. Well of course he's saying that now. Just so he can point to it when he does start defying them and say see I never wanted to defy a judge but the evile radical deep state lefty judges made me do it. We're going to find out it takes wrecking the economy, the judicial system and the entire democratic system just to save America from the evil deep state lefties.
See what happens with the tariffs. Maybe he's bullshitting and it turns out to be a damp squib and the markets go nuts. Maybe he's literally betting on that. No way to tell anymore because the markets are turning into smoke and mirrors due to all the corruption. I am not retiring, fuck these guys.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
I posted this back in February.
But WAIT.....
https://apnews.com/article/trump-thi...68b17fe89b7578
"Trump says he’s considering ways to serve a third term as president"
If we think we're gonna rid ourselves of Trump... we got another thing coming. :D
About the only thing we got going for us is Trump's age. But who's to know if he's going to fund some ultra-secret youth serum technology so he can stick around for a couple more terms. :D
The only thing I would say is I would rather Trump than either of them ass wipes Vance or Musk.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFanQuote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
I posted this back in February.
But WAIT.....
https://apnews.com/article/trump-thi...68b17fe89b7578
"Trump says he’s considering ways to serve a third term as president"
If we think we're gonna rid ourselves of Trump... we got another thing coming. :D
About the only thing we got going for us is Trump's age. But who's to know if he's going to fund some ultra-secret youth serum technology so he can stick around for a couple more terms. :D
That is not much choice. Musk is South African but they may change the rules to allow him to run.Quote:
Originally Posted by Primo CarneraThe only thing I would say is I would rather Trump than either of them ass wipes Vance or Musk.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFanQuote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
I posted this back in February.
But WAIT.....
https://apnews.com/article/trump-thi...68b17fe89b7578
"Trump says he’s considering ways to serve a third term as president"
If we think we're gonna rid ourselves of Trump... we got another thing coming. :D
About the only thing we got going for us is Trump's age. But who's to know if he's going to fund some ultra-secret youth serum technology so he can stick around for a couple more terms. :D
The juicy part is about 30 seconds in...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GIIT_LSNfI&t=259s
While the Democratic party is full of whiners and "do-nothing" handwringers when it comes to Trump... the GOP is chockfull of flip-floppers who apparently undergo massive lobotomies and check their "cojones" in at the door without a second thought of how they might be perceived by intelligent voters.
Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and of course Vance are but a few of these spineless flip-floppers who have had their anti-Trump comments thrown in their face... and of course they shamelessly proceed to "explain" those away.
U.S. politics is a great big steaming pile of SHIT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4sifpTxowo&t=23s
The following should be blared through giant loudspeakers in all U.S. cities, especially in those in States that voted for Trump.
I...
told...
you...
so!!!!!!
Watching Asian markets open like it's 2009.
Maybe Trump does an Erdogan*. He can fire all his nutcase economic advisors and blame the whole thing on them. These idiots are currently briefing everybody that the tariffs are just a negotiation ploy to actually bring tariffs down. As long as they stick with that nobody is going to reshore a single job, so Americans are going to miss out on those high paying sock factory gigs anyway. And of course with full employment at the minute they'd have to import millions of new immigrants for the jobs anyway. It's a load of incoherent, contradictory rubbish and Trump can elegantly reverse out of it before the tariffs start next week. He must be thinking about it. He'll be getting lots of phone calls I'm sure. Bring Cohn and Mnuchin back. The markets take off again. Just stay in Florida and play golf. Better than the alternative.
*Nobody asked me about Erdogan. If he sticks with the tariffs everybody will know the story. It's only the most consequential shit that's happened to people since 2009 and nobody seems to care. Another exhibit.
I have a slight request, unless someone in the forum objects.
I'm not a Mod, so I can't do the change myself.
Could we slightly modify the title of the thread to "Today in tRump"?
I object. It looks fucking juvenile and it looks like I did it. Sorry. Can we change it back please.Quote:
Originally Posted by TitoFan
The guy who wrote this is the chief financial correspondent for the most right wing newspaper in Britain. He's a proper reactionary and would fit happily in the right wing contingent of the pre-Trump GOP. To give you an example, in the nineties he was based in Washington for the same paper and in his spare time wrote a book on how the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered. When he ditches ideology he's pretty accurate as a pundit and that's going over decades now, he's one of the handful of people I actually read. This seems to me like a likely path for where we're headed:
If you think it’s alarming now, just wait for Trump to wreck the bond market
The White House’s push for for expanded presidential power threatens US economic stability
Donald Trump is systematically purging every US government institution, a pattern familiar to anybody who has studied the caudillo regimes of Latin America, or the playbook of today’s Putin-Orbán-Erdoğan prototypes.
It is a racing certainty that he will soon do the same to the Federal Reserve, forcing the central bank to cut interest rates into the teeth of rising inflation, with epic consequences for the world’s dollarised financial system and for €39 trillion (£33 trillion) of offshore dollar debt contracts and swaps.
Late last week he fired the head of the National Security Agency and its top officials at the behest of Laura Loomer, a fringe conspiracy theorist, who whispered into Trump’s ear that they were disloyal to the Maga movement.
He has already fired the heads of the FBI’s intelligence division, its counterterrorism division and criminal investigations division, as well as the heads of the Washington and New York offices.
He has fired the top brass of the US military, starting with a preemptive strike on the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. An earlier chairman – General Mark Milley – refused to ratify Trump’s attempted coup d’etat on Jan 6 2021.
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the constitution,” said Milley in his parting shot.
But Trump also fired the three judge advocates general, who are legally independent by Congressional statute and have the authority to decide which military orders should be disobeyed – such as Trump’s order to “just shoot” American protesters, on American soil, during the Black Lives Matter saga.
That obstacle will not recur. Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, said the three judges had been sacked to stop them posing any “roadblocks to orders given by the commander-in-chief”.
You can go through the list, agency by agency, extending to the universities and private law firms, and even to the muzzled editorials of some of America’s once great newspapers: the purge is Bolshevik in ambition.
Does anybody in their right mind think that Trump will spare the Fed’s Jerome Powell as the two men gear up for an almighty clash over US monetary policy? “CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!” bellowed Trump in capital letters on Truth Social on Friday.
The Fed will indeed cut rates this year but not until it is able to see through the confusing blizzard of tariffs and the ricochet retaliation of an angry world.
Powell told Congress that the tariff shock is much bigger than expected and may set off “persistent” inflation rather than just a one-off jump in the price level. He came close to damning Trumponomics as a recipe for low-growth stagflation. That is a red flag to a bull.
The current debate over whether or not Trump has the legal power to fire Powell entirely misunderstands the character of the Maga revolution. America’s rule of law is for guidance only these days.
You could say it was ever thus. Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court after it blocked the New Deal. He failed, and unleashed tax investigations to settle scores, as did Richard Nixon. But Trump is an order of magnitude more outrageous.
Powell will not go without a fight. “I will never, ever, ever leave this job voluntarily until my term ends under any circumstances,” he said during Trump 1.0.
Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said the administration could sideline Powell by appointing a “shadow” Fed chairman, who could steer the markets by issuing forward guidance. But this does not overcome resistance from the Fed board and the hawkish regional presidents.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/...eg?imwidth=350
A secretive team of Trump loyalists drew up a 10-page report before the election proposing more radical measures. These include forcing the Fed to “align policy with administration goals” or even to make the president an “acting” member of the Fed board.
Trump could purge members of the seven-strong Fed board one by one until they get the message. The law states that the president can terminate the 14-year term of a Fed governor “for cause”, usually meaning malfeasance or neglect.
But Trump has just abused his tariff powers on an heroic scale by invoking fictitious “emergencies”. He could no doubt stretch the meaning of “for cause” to anything he wants. The Supreme Court has the last say, but Trump-appointed justices have already shown a strong leaning towards an imperial presidency.
In any case, there are other methods to bring the Fed to heel.
Maga vigilantes are intimidating American judges by having pizzas delivered to their homes – a mob tactic to say “we know where you live”. So we can assume that recalcitrant members of the Federal Open Market Committee will face this sort of treatment.
The major US banks are raising their inflation forecasts to 4pc or higher this year. This inflation will hit before the last three price shocks – Covid, the Putin commodity spike and Biden’s overspending – have faded from immediate memory. It is exactly how inflation psychology becomes embedded.
A variant happened in the 1970s. Nixon bullied the Fed into expansionary policies, with some choice language on “the myth of the autonomous Fed” that later surfaced in the Oval Office tapes.
Loose money stoked inflation, so Nixon ordered a freeze on prices and wages in 1971, declaring war on “gougers”. It was very popular. Illiterate policies often are.
If Trump succeeds in extracting rate cuts from the Fed and tax cuts from Congress, the same problem is going to arise. So my assumption is that he will blame the symptoms and will resort to price controls.
The elephantine difference is that US federal debt was 34pc of GDP in 1971. Today it is 122pc on the Fed measure, and galloping upwards. The fiscal deficit is over 6pc as far as the eye can see.
The US does not have the domestic savings to fund this debt appetite. The savings rate has collapsed to 0.6pc of national income. It was 12pc in the 1960s.
Foreign investors have been plugging the gap. This soaks up a large part of the world’s savings – the underlying cause of America’s trade deficit.
If you think the stock market gyrations of the last few days are terrifying, just wait until Trump destroys the credibility of the Fed and of US treasury debt, the anchor of the global system.
He could order a captive Fed to relaunch quantitative easing and buy the bonds, but to do that when inflation is running hot would be seen by the whole world as naked fiscal dominance. It would set off a price spiral and a collapse of the currency – the sort of outcome seen over the decades in Latin America, or Erdoğan’s Turkey.
The end destination is a return to US capital controls to stop foreign funds and US investors from taking their money out of America. A man willing to impose 116pc tariffs – including pre-existing ones – on Chinese goods and shut down the biggest bilateral trade relationship in the world as if it were a TV reality show will stop at nothing.
So a bit of a debt problem. Never mind, efficient tax collection will at least keep revenues coming in. It's not like they're going to shutter the IRS tax division that monitors big business and the wealthy:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog...9-df7e05237d43
Also I'm going to take a wild guess here and say shutting down the crypto investigation unit of the DOJ will end badly:
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/04/0...blanche-trump/
Firsr Trump started off shaking down law firms for tens of millions of dollars of pro bono work. Now they're going after individual lawyers for the crime of representing people they don't like.
https://www.mediaite.com/news/lawyer...ugh-his-phone/
America is halfway to Russia as far as the rule of law goes and the democratic system in just a couple of months. The tariffs and other policy moves are heading it towards South American banana republic economics. Maybe the best hope now is that the tariffs backfire so badly that Trump loses support and congress and the senate develop some backbone and rein him in.