So much of Trump 2.0 can be ascribed to venomous hatred of anything that even has a whiff of non-Republicanness to it with a healthy dash of just rank stupidity thrown in.
Now we have Liberation Day which is proving to be both a repudiation of 80 years of largely consensual opinion on trade (because it's Democratic?) and it couldn't be any more stupider. I mean aside from the whole idea of a trade war in 2025. That's pretty stupid, too. So right off the bat? Really stupid.
When you get into the weeds, it just gets stupider and stupider.
Trump had a chart at his declaration of war on the global economy today. The chart was - wait for it - stupid as fuck. Let's start with the first thing people noticed. Trump's chart had one column which was what other countries' charged us in tariffs, the second was his new tariffs. The tariffs ostensibly levied against the US are complete and utter nonsense. Just absolute fabrications. No one could figure out how he arrived at the EU having a 39% tariff on US good. It's just wildly, wildly wrong (it's closer to 3%).
It seems that what he did was to simply calculate the trade deficit with that country and make it a percentage and call that a tariff. Is it a tariff? No it is not. It's not even close to being a tariff. And trade deficits are stupid, too. As someone put it, you run a "trade deficit" with the grocery store. You give them money and they give you stuff. You both do well by the arrangement. (Unless you shop at Whole Foods.)
Finally, the chart revealed just how fucking stupid the stupid people working for the stupid man really are. One of the countries running the mythical 10% trade surplus with us is apparently the Heard and McDonald Islands. They are uninhabited. He levied a 58% tariff on Norfolk Island. They have $2million in TOTAL exports.
The people who made this chart for him are either brain damaged or they refuse to point out that the emperor is naked. What's more everything we know about this bloated sack of used hamburgers is that - having made these ridiculous statements - he simply will not admit that he is wrong. He cannot back down.
This, of course, is also really, really stupid. The sort of stupid shit stupid people do to cover up the fact that they just did something stupid. Trump was joking a few months ago about taking over Canada, and now there are gremlins in DC somewhere cooking up invasion plans.
As of now the S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures are off 4% in futures trading. Shit is going to be ugly tomorrow.
Last year, the wife and I did some retirement planning. We are in great shape, they said, as long as there isn't a major depression right before you retire.
Heh heh. Heh heh.
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