Trump's tariffs are deliberately re-creating pandemic-era shortages. Get used to seeing OUT OF STOCK on many of the items you're looking to purchase. And paying higher prices for what's available.
Not even to mention the credit scores and incomes of the millions of student borrowers the Dept. of Ed. is planning to go after.... I bet you $5000 they're gonna start sending out those "DOGE Dividends" or "Baby Bonuses" by the end of the year in an effort to win angry voters back.
DOGE dividends would have to pass the House and Senate - and the Senate's filibuster - before Trump can send out more checks with his name on them. The DOGE dividends would have to be shoved into the pending tax cut reconciliation bill and the tax cuts for the rich would have to be reduced to keep the bill "revenue neutral." Ain't no way rich folks' tax cuts will be reduced to send checks to working people.
Yes, monetary gifting is the answer to economic problems. Always has been. The trick we need to learn is how do we gift EVERYONE, especially in a way that ends the biggest bitch everyone is complaining about? Why retail sale of course because EVERYONE continually participates in/is effected by the price at retail sale...and using MMT's correct claim that our money is created by equal debits and credits at that point, ...would change that excellent insight into a mega-paradigm change. Whatta you think Stephanie? Do you want to be a part of a good insight or a mega-paradigm change?
It’s deja vu all over again -Yogi Berra. More supply distribution bottlenecks, which will, of course, be inflationary, while allowing multi-nationals to price-gouge, padding their profits just like they did during Covid. Does anyone think this was unintended?
Shahid Bolsen presents the perspective that Trump is working for a trans-national cabal and that this tariff move is part of what he calls a controlled demolition of the American economy.
I've heard it said that you shouldn't ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but I'm not sure that's reliable advice.
FWIW, Bolsen, an outspoken Muslim, declares that the players behind this are not "the Jews," they are transnational and multi-ethnic.
So last week 42% of poll respondents felt that Trump was managing the federal government adequately?
OK, maybe meat inspection, vaccine development, and preschool education are too expensive to provide for us spoiled takers, but weather forecasting? Natural disasters are going to take on a whole new dimensions in needless pain and suffering.
Tariffs are inflationary, while a trade war is recessionary. Congressional Republicans hope to pass a big deficit busting tax cut next month which could forestall recession but boost inflation. But tariffs raise revenue and reduce the deficit, which will cool down the economy. So, what will the net effect be? What does MMT recommend to Congress and the Fed?
I guess that will depend on the goal of economic policy. Let's assume the goal of Congress is to try to avoid a global recession amidst a trade war. But then, what should the complementary goal of the Fed be? To accommodate or tighten? Wouldn't MMT say "go ahead, cut taxes, don't let the 'deficit myth' get in the way; raising interest rates aren't the answer for tariff-induced supply-side problems, so let interest rates drop"? If so, then the deficits from tax cuts would be financing U.S. consumers to keep buying imports with tariffs, while other countries import less from the U.S. with their own tariffs. While big tax cuts and a loose Fed may avoid a global recession, it sure would worsen the trade and fiscal imbalances. So, please tell me: what is the goal of economic policy today? Have we even defined the problem? Does policy even fit the problem? Do economists even agree on what the problem is?
If the problem is correcting structural trade imbalances, why not forget tariffs, lower interest rates, and let the dollar fall 30% to where it was in 2010? Do economists even agree that eliminating structural trade balances is a good idea in a highly integrated global economy? If so, is having the dollar serve as reserve currency for the world the root cause of the problem (per Triffin's Dilemma)?
As Einstein said, "if I had but one hour to save the world, I'd spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem." Isn't the herd mentality of the economics profession, which cheered the glory of free trade for decades while ignoring the social costs of lost jobs and whole communities in the U.S. part of the problem? Can't economists unite around a positive vision for this country? Can Stephanie help in this task? We seem to be sleep-walking to disaster.
Interesting post. My response to Einstein is: Spend 10 minutes discovering the deepest problem (an old paradigm gone on for too long) and spend however long it takes you to realize that nothing short of a new paradigm...is the necessary and applied solution. Analyzing historical paradigms to find their signatures is a good start. Recognizing that the entire body of "free" market theoretics is a misnomer is very important because, as you point out in your post...nothing actually works because it swings from half truth to half truth reforms which is indicative of its lacking any known and enforceable barriers within which human freedom can actually exist. You want increased commercial and individual economic freedom? Find the new monetary paradigm and apply it strategically. Why? Because money makes the world go 'round for enterprise and the individual yet the dumb shits among us insist on creating austerity instead of finding a way to resolve the anomalies we all obsess about by stategically applying the new monetary paradigm of GIFTING, using MMT's insight that money is created with accounting entries, at the point of retail sale with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy.
And here's the final realization that one is really on to something big: Serendipity, that is when doing something new not only solves problems in the area under analysis, but surprisingly enables/causes improvements in other areas of life thought not relevant or even possible.
Who'd have thunk that bean counting/double entry bookkeeping and Gifting applied to the economy…could be the greatest opportunity to self actualize gratitude for a gift…since meditation and prayer??? Or is the idea behind Christmas (an aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace as in gifting) entirely bunk?
Tariffs aren't evil when used judiciously to protect vital domestic industries and employment.
However, there is little manufacturing left in the U.S. If a revival policy were serious, it would require long range central planning. Which to encourage, how much govt funds to invest for how long, where to locate modernized plants, setting up employee training, etc. Anti-govt ideologues would never go for this, negating the alleged goal of bringing back jobs.
Of course with Trump, no way to discern what reasoning is behind any decision. But it has been reported that all the $$$ pouring in from tariffs would mean the federal income tax could be eliminated. A fave of 1%er fans of trickle up.
Apparently the real world is much more complicated.
What do you think the odds are that the all those frustrated parents and their resulting political activity will be considered by the Unitary Executive as a threat to national security?
Trump told Sean Hannity months ago: "I don't care about the economy." A rare moment of truth. However, he does care about making money hand over fist. He's done it twice now--he drives markets down with his crazy tariff pronouncements and then tells his buddies at night to buy on the dip because by 2 PM the next day he plans to announce a pullback on tariffs. And he'll keep doing it as long as it works.
Trump has no intention of leaving the White House in 2029--he didn't decorate the Oval Office like he's Auric Goldfinger for nothing. And the constitution be damned. But to pull that off he needs a Republican Speaker of the House to keep Congress in line. And the way things are going, Republicans are going to get slaughtered in the 2026 midterms. IF THEY'RE HELD.
Don't gloat over Trump's cratering poll numbers. If it gets bad enough Trump will take a page out of Netanyahu's playbook and start a war somewhere. Once he does that, Trump will declare martial law--and you can't have elections with martial law going on. So Trump's war will kill 2 birds with one stoned mindset--he'll rally the nation behind him and prevent a Democratic Speaker from taking charge of the House.
If all this sounds crazy to you, you're right. Trump is mentally ill.
Yes, Trump is the USA empire's equivalent of Caligula. He nominated the horses of Hegseth, Patel and Bondi didn't he? Where's the centurian guard...when you really need them?
Actually there's probably ways to castrate him politically. I should pitch the new monetary paradigm to him. Its completely unorthodox which he'd probably like for its illogic and initial outrage and chaotic effects. Republicans recognize and go for power much better than democrats do. The lack of response by Stephanie and general refusal to look at the temporal universe effects of my posts by all but a few here is proof of that. Now that I think about it him advocating for it might be what brings out financial seal team 6 and saves us from hyper vomiting for another 3.5 years.
Trump imposed a 10% tariff on coffee, an agricultural commodity that's not even grown in the United States. Why on earth would he try to protect a product that Americans will never produce? (Well, with climate change, I guess I should never say never.) Trump says his tariffs will eliminate income taxes for anyone making less than $200,000/year. Well, lots of poor people drink coffee, and they already don't pay any taxes. So how do the tariffs collected on higher coffee prices help them?
Further proof that Trump is a disgusting human being.
Meanwhile...The atmospheric concentration of CO2 hit 431.13 parts per million yesterday, a new record for the anthropocene era. So we can expect to see a double whammy of mayhem this summer and fall. As hurricanes, tornados, derechos, wildfires and floods at never-before-seen strength destroy thousands of homes and kill hundreds of people, the shelves at Home Depot and Lowes could very well be bare due to Trump's idiotic tariffs. Good luck to folks trying to rebuild.
During WWII Americans took some comfort in the thought that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans shielded us from our enemies abroad. But due to our insane addiction to fossil fuels, climate change has turned those great bodies of water into the most formidable enemies our nation has ever faced. If a foreign enemy had caused the absurd amount of destruction over the past 5 years, we would have already launched a hundred ships, a thousand aircraft, and a million troops to destroy them. But because we're dealing with "Mother Nature," we sit back and pretend that there's nothing we can do.
I know "woke" isn't too popular these days, but maybe it's time to wake up.
There's nothing like a change in the monetary paradigm to dispel all of the failure to rationally act in the face of converging crises. Why? Because money is what enables actions in the temporal universe, and if you created a policy like the one in my book that would require a sliding scale percentage of GIFTED money to be invested in eco-energy R & D and infrastructure bonds at like 6-7%...just how much rational action toward resolving the climate crisis might that create???
Without China, there's no rare earths. Without rare earths, there's no tech. Without tech, there's no America as we know it. What Trump's actually doing is making America Amish again. Just imagine what will happen when things start going wrong and can't be fixed... try living on the 35th floor after the elevators have packed up... China clearly has the whip hand here and it can only be a matter of time before that becomes obvious. I'd think it credible Trump will resort to martial law at some point to stay in office but anything tech-reliant will fail and probably quite soon too so that won't be a state of affairs which can last long. I'm aware China needs American plastics but that's at the moment; Chinese ingenuity will find a way, I'm sure, to replace traditional plastics with hemp equivalents and that'll be that. However you look at this, China wins, America loses. When Americans come to understand this, it'll be bye-bye Trump. Shame they coudn't have worked it out from the get-go really.
Not even to mention the credit scores and incomes of the millions of student borrowers the Dept. of Ed. is planning to go after.... I bet you $5000 they're gonna start sending out those "DOGE Dividends" or "Baby Bonuses" by the end of the year in an effort to win angry voters back.
They may wait till it’s closer to the ’26 mid-terms.
DOGE dividends would have to pass the House and Senate - and the Senate's filibuster - before Trump can send out more checks with his name on them. The DOGE dividends would have to be shoved into the pending tax cut reconciliation bill and the tax cuts for the rich would have to be reduced to keep the bill "revenue neutral." Ain't no way rich folks' tax cuts will be reduced to send checks to working people.
Yes, monetary gifting is the answer to economic problems. Always has been. The trick we need to learn is how do we gift EVERYONE, especially in a way that ends the biggest bitch everyone is complaining about? Why retail sale of course because EVERYONE continually participates in/is effected by the price at retail sale...and using MMT's correct claim that our money is created by equal debits and credits at that point, ...would change that excellent insight into a mega-paradigm change. Whatta you think Stephanie? Do you want to be a part of a good insight or a mega-paradigm change?
What they gonna buy with them? There's just gonna be empty shelves everywhere.
It’s deja vu all over again -Yogi Berra. More supply distribution bottlenecks, which will, of course, be inflationary, while allowing multi-nationals to price-gouge, padding their profits just like they did during Covid. Does anyone think this was unintended?
Shahid Bolsen presents the perspective that Trump is working for a trans-national cabal and that this tariff move is part of what he calls a controlled demolition of the American economy.
I've heard it said that you shouldn't ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but I'm not sure that's reliable advice.
FWIW, Bolsen, an outspoken Muslim, declares that the players behind this are not "the Jews," they are transnational and multi-ethnic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBoGaQUyvDc
So last week 42% of poll respondents felt that Trump was managing the federal government adequately?
OK, maybe meat inspection, vaccine development, and preschool education are too expensive to provide for us spoiled takers, but weather forecasting? Natural disasters are going to take on a whole new dimensions in needless pain and suffering.
Ignorance will not lead to bliss ...
https://tessaschlesinger.medium.com/china-just-won-the-trade-war-with-america-bd8d6924a38b
Ordered HEPA filter supplies for just this coming crisis.
Tariffs are inflationary, while a trade war is recessionary. Congressional Republicans hope to pass a big deficit busting tax cut next month which could forestall recession but boost inflation. But tariffs raise revenue and reduce the deficit, which will cool down the economy. So, what will the net effect be? What does MMT recommend to Congress and the Fed?
I guess that will depend on the goal of economic policy. Let's assume the goal of Congress is to try to avoid a global recession amidst a trade war. But then, what should the complementary goal of the Fed be? To accommodate or tighten? Wouldn't MMT say "go ahead, cut taxes, don't let the 'deficit myth' get in the way; raising interest rates aren't the answer for tariff-induced supply-side problems, so let interest rates drop"? If so, then the deficits from tax cuts would be financing U.S. consumers to keep buying imports with tariffs, while other countries import less from the U.S. with their own tariffs. While big tax cuts and a loose Fed may avoid a global recession, it sure would worsen the trade and fiscal imbalances. So, please tell me: what is the goal of economic policy today? Have we even defined the problem? Does policy even fit the problem? Do economists even agree on what the problem is?
If the problem is correcting structural trade imbalances, why not forget tariffs, lower interest rates, and let the dollar fall 30% to where it was in 2010? Do economists even agree that eliminating structural trade balances is a good idea in a highly integrated global economy? If so, is having the dollar serve as reserve currency for the world the root cause of the problem (per Triffin's Dilemma)?
As Einstein said, "if I had but one hour to save the world, I'd spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem." Isn't the herd mentality of the economics profession, which cheered the glory of free trade for decades while ignoring the social costs of lost jobs and whole communities in the U.S. part of the problem? Can't economists unite around a positive vision for this country? Can Stephanie help in this task? We seem to be sleep-walking to disaster.
Interesting post. My response to Einstein is: Spend 10 minutes discovering the deepest problem (an old paradigm gone on for too long) and spend however long it takes you to realize that nothing short of a new paradigm...is the necessary and applied solution. Analyzing historical paradigms to find their signatures is a good start. Recognizing that the entire body of "free" market theoretics is a misnomer is very important because, as you point out in your post...nothing actually works because it swings from half truth to half truth reforms which is indicative of its lacking any known and enforceable barriers within which human freedom can actually exist. You want increased commercial and individual economic freedom? Find the new monetary paradigm and apply it strategically. Why? Because money makes the world go 'round for enterprise and the individual yet the dumb shits among us insist on creating austerity instead of finding a way to resolve the anomalies we all obsess about by stategically applying the new monetary paradigm of GIFTING, using MMT's insight that money is created with accounting entries, at the point of retail sale with a 50% Discount/Rebate policy.
And here's the final realization that one is really on to something big: Serendipity, that is when doing something new not only solves problems in the area under analysis, but surprisingly enables/causes improvements in other areas of life thought not relevant or even possible.
Who'd have thunk that bean counting/double entry bookkeeping and Gifting applied to the economy…could be the greatest opportunity to self actualize gratitude for a gift…since meditation and prayer??? Or is the idea behind Christmas (an aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace as in gifting) entirely bunk?
Tariffs aren't evil when used judiciously to protect vital domestic industries and employment.
However, there is little manufacturing left in the U.S. If a revival policy were serious, it would require long range central planning. Which to encourage, how much govt funds to invest for how long, where to locate modernized plants, setting up employee training, etc. Anti-govt ideologues would never go for this, negating the alleged goal of bringing back jobs.
Of course with Trump, no way to discern what reasoning is behind any decision. But it has been reported that all the $$$ pouring in from tariffs would mean the federal income tax could be eliminated. A fave of 1%er fans of trickle up.
Apparently the real world is much more complicated.
What do you think the odds are that the all those frustrated parents and their resulting political activity will be considered by the Unitary Executive as a threat to national security?
Trump told Sean Hannity months ago: "I don't care about the economy." A rare moment of truth. However, he does care about making money hand over fist. He's done it twice now--he drives markets down with his crazy tariff pronouncements and then tells his buddies at night to buy on the dip because by 2 PM the next day he plans to announce a pullback on tariffs. And he'll keep doing it as long as it works.
Trump has no intention of leaving the White House in 2029--he didn't decorate the Oval Office like he's Auric Goldfinger for nothing. And the constitution be damned. But to pull that off he needs a Republican Speaker of the House to keep Congress in line. And the way things are going, Republicans are going to get slaughtered in the 2026 midterms. IF THEY'RE HELD.
Don't gloat over Trump's cratering poll numbers. If it gets bad enough Trump will take a page out of Netanyahu's playbook and start a war somewhere. Once he does that, Trump will declare martial law--and you can't have elections with martial law going on. So Trump's war will kill 2 birds with one stoned mindset--he'll rally the nation behind him and prevent a Democratic Speaker from taking charge of the House.
If all this sounds crazy to you, you're right. Trump is mentally ill.
Yes, Trump is the USA empire's equivalent of Caligula. He nominated the horses of Hegseth, Patel and Bondi didn't he? Where's the centurian guard...when you really need them?
Actually there's probably ways to castrate him politically. I should pitch the new monetary paradigm to him. Its completely unorthodox which he'd probably like for its illogic and initial outrage and chaotic effects. Republicans recognize and go for power much better than democrats do. The lack of response by Stephanie and general refusal to look at the temporal universe effects of my posts by all but a few here is proof of that. Now that I think about it him advocating for it might be what brings out financial seal team 6 and saves us from hyper vomiting for another 3.5 years.
Trump imposed a 10% tariff on coffee, an agricultural commodity that's not even grown in the United States. Why on earth would he try to protect a product that Americans will never produce? (Well, with climate change, I guess I should never say never.) Trump says his tariffs will eliminate income taxes for anyone making less than $200,000/year. Well, lots of poor people drink coffee, and they already don't pay any taxes. So how do the tariffs collected on higher coffee prices help them?
Further proof that Trump is a disgusting human being.
Meanwhile...The atmospheric concentration of CO2 hit 431.13 parts per million yesterday, a new record for the anthropocene era. So we can expect to see a double whammy of mayhem this summer and fall. As hurricanes, tornados, derechos, wildfires and floods at never-before-seen strength destroy thousands of homes and kill hundreds of people, the shelves at Home Depot and Lowes could very well be bare due to Trump's idiotic tariffs. Good luck to folks trying to rebuild.
During WWII Americans took some comfort in the thought that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans shielded us from our enemies abroad. But due to our insane addiction to fossil fuels, climate change has turned those great bodies of water into the most formidable enemies our nation has ever faced. If a foreign enemy had caused the absurd amount of destruction over the past 5 years, we would have already launched a hundred ships, a thousand aircraft, and a million troops to destroy them. But because we're dealing with "Mother Nature," we sit back and pretend that there's nothing we can do.
I know "woke" isn't too popular these days, but maybe it's time to wake up.
There's nothing like a change in the monetary paradigm to dispel all of the failure to rationally act in the face of converging crises. Why? Because money is what enables actions in the temporal universe, and if you created a policy like the one in my book that would require a sliding scale percentage of GIFTED money to be invested in eco-energy R & D and infrastructure bonds at like 6-7%...just how much rational action toward resolving the climate crisis might that create???
Without China, there's no rare earths. Without rare earths, there's no tech. Without tech, there's no America as we know it. What Trump's actually doing is making America Amish again. Just imagine what will happen when things start going wrong and can't be fixed... try living on the 35th floor after the elevators have packed up... China clearly has the whip hand here and it can only be a matter of time before that becomes obvious. I'd think it credible Trump will resort to martial law at some point to stay in office but anything tech-reliant will fail and probably quite soon too so that won't be a state of affairs which can last long. I'm aware China needs American plastics but that's at the moment; Chinese ingenuity will find a way, I'm sure, to replace traditional plastics with hemp equivalents and that'll be that. However you look at this, China wins, America loses. When Americans come to understand this, it'll be bye-bye Trump. Shame they coudn't have worked it out from the get-go really.