God’s chosen cannot fail.
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That would be the best we could feel about him. In reality it is worse than a few bad feelings. Facts on the ground are freezing in hell.
I’m reminded of this scene from The Office
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You cannot beat jeffrey Sachs, and he lays the clarity and sanity on Good and Hard (I like that phrase):
the nature of trade balances, Ricardo theory, post WWII trade policy, and the USA becoming a rogue nation.
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Unfortunately anyone he hired to be his advisor is ill-advised.
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You are not the first to suggest that, and it isn’t just about trade.
Steve
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Dear Steve,
It is based on trade but is an incoherent set of policies.
Not to mention the wrong way to turn for policy.
We need to raise taxes.
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More about ‘The Plan’:
President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.
“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interviewduring which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.
“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”
The numbers I want to come up with…
“I’m not afraid of a few Indians.” – General George Custer
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His incompetence can’t be covered by his bluster. All he can do is change subjects, go to another issue, or, worse, start a war.
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Ugghh, if you want something to melt your brain, try reading the Time Magazine interview transcript - here’s some back and forth that sounds like a dumb teenager who’s trying to lie his way out of a problem:
"Your trade adviser, Peter Navarro, says 90 deals in 90 days is possible. We’re now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There’s zero deals so far. Why is that?
No, there’s many deals.
When are they going to be announced?
You have to understand, I’m dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We’re meeting with China. We’re doing fine with everybody. But ultimately, I’ve made all the deals.
Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them?
I’ve made 200 deals.
You’ve made 200 deals?
100%.
Can you share with whom?
Because the deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it. They don’t have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. Some have been horrible to us. Some have been okay. Nobody’s been great. Nobody’s been great. Everybody took advantage of us. What I’m doing is I will, at a certain point in the not too distant future, I will set a fair price of tariffs for different countries. These are countries—some of them have made hundreds of billions of dollars, and some of them have made just a lot of money. Very few of them have made nothing because the United States was being ripped off by every, almost every country in the world, in the entire world. So I will set a price, and when I set the price, and I will set it fairly according to the statistics, and according to everything else. For instance, do they have the VAT system in play? Do they charge us tariffs? How much are they charging us? How much have they been charging us? Many, many different factors, right. How are we being treated by that country? And then I will set a tariff. Are we paying for their military? You know, as an example, we have Korea. We pay billions of dollars for the military. Japan, billions for those and others. But that, I’m going to keep us a separate item, the paying of the military. Germany, we have 50,000 soldiers—
I’m just curious, why don’t you announce these deals that you’ve solidified?
I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way.
You’re finished?
We’ll be finished.
Oh, you will be finished in three to four weeks.
I’ll be finished. Now, some countries may come back and ask for an adjustment, and I’ll consider that, but I’ll basically be, with great knowledge, setting—ready? We’re a department store, a giant department store, the biggest department store in history. Everybody wants to come in and take from us. They’re going to come in and they’re going to pay a price for taking our treasure, for taking our jobs, for doing all of these things. But what I’m doing with the tariffs is people are coming in, and they’re building at levels you’ve never seen before. We have $7 trillion of new plants, factories and other things, investment coming into the United States. And if you look back at past presidents, nobody was anywhere near that. And this is in three months.
Will you call President Xi if he doesn’t call you?
No.
You won’t?
Nope.
Has he called you yet?
Yep.
When did he call you?
He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf.
But you would think it’s a sign of weakness if you called him?
I don’t–I just look—
Well, what did he say?
If people want to–well, we all want to make deals. But I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.
This period of uncertainty will be over in three to four weeks?
I don’t think there’s any uncertainty there. The only thing—they have an option. They don’t have to shop here. They can go someplace else, but there aren’t too many places they can go. You understand what I mean though?"
Oh God, we’re so screwed…
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I don’t think that is God he is talking to.
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That was my comment, given our current predicament. Sorry for the confusion.
I realized that Eldemonio, my comment stands.
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There is NO urgency to do any deal.
US is collecting tariffs and the money is going to the coffers.
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Ouch. It’s my screen name, isn’t it? I was waffling between tiranocompasivo, beelzabub666, and eldemonio…
As a refresher, eldemonio refers to a Mexican luchador named El Demonio Azul.
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In a few weeks, the shelves at major retailers will start to go a little bare. Americans won’t be able to find what they’re used to being able to buy. There will be local news stories with video of stores that look more like Soviet-era markets, rather than abundance.
That’s what China’s waiting for. They’re not paying much in the way of tariffs (they’re so high they’re essentially an embargo, in both directions). They’re waiting for the Administration to have to climb down unilaterally because the domestic pressure will be too great for them to stand.
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Debit US consumers - Credit Treasury (and deserving JCs soon).
But of course, it’s NOT a tax (eyeroll)
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Yes. He’s a big burbling font of lies. The Burbler in Chief. With a department store now.
We ARE so screwed.
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