Just figured out how the Trump tariffs saga will end.
Trump will announce that 100 countries have agreed to reduce their trade surpluses with the US to zero. He will declare victory and drop all his tariffs.
No need to produce any actual trade agreement documents as everyone will be happy with this supposed outcome.
Will be Trump’s greatest achievement, until a few years down the road people notice these countries’ trade surpluses with the US have increased.
Nope. Fox will just stop covering it, people will assume it all got fixed. Take your facts and go home.
I don’t get what Trump has that makes people believe him after he has done this same thing so many times before. I guess he finds a way to inflict enough pain along the way that people are relieved when that ends, and people get worried that maybe this time he won’t retreat? We certainly saw that with the stock market.
I think he will announce victories next to US companies that build factories in the US. These new factories will all be 95% automated, so the actual job creation will be minimal, and at a huge cost per tariff dollar collected. Same shit he did during 1.0. We all end up incrementally poorer in fuzzy terms, be he gets the headline he wants and some slabs of concrete in a field somewhere.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1921932211609342012
Drug prices will come down by, much more really if you think—59, if you think of sometimes a drug that is 10 times more expensive, it’s much more than the 59 percent. You know, it depends on the way you want to analyze it, but in one way you could analyze it that way. But between 59 and 80, and I guess even 90 percent. Well, we’re getting them down 60, 70, 80, 90 percent—but actually more than that if you think about it in a way, mathematically
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1921930855867457667
I’ll tell you a story. A “friend of mine” who’s a businessman, very, very, very top guy. Most of you would’ve heard of “him”. Highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and “he” takes the fat shot drug. And “he” called me up, and “he” said, ‘President’—he used to call me Donald, now he calls me President, so that’s nice respect. But he’s a rough guy, smart guy. Very successful, very rich. I wouldn’t even know how we would know this, because he’s got comments. ‘President, could I ask you a question?’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.’ I said, ‘It’s not working.’
Another hard-earned achievement by Trump.
Not uniquely attributable to Trump, but I see that 60% of U.S. households can’t afford the basics of life. I’m sure the tariffs will help…
Grift can take various forms. Trump’s real estate company gets special treatment in Vietnam without Trump’s direct involvement. Of course, there is that peripheral issue of potential US tariffs on Vietnam….
Biggest crowds ever in the US:
Might be time for a “Freedom March” on DC this summer. Cuz, losing freedoms. Well, not me, but many other American Citizens.
I think this is a genuine win for Trump. He gets NATO countries to significantly increase their military spending AND spend their money on US equipment.
Especially important to the US as sales of military equipment may be its main export by far after tariffs work their way through US economy.
Along the same lines:
Intuit opted out of the program a few years ago and were always against it. As a response the IRS developed direct file which is the same as turbo tax but is done on an IRS system. It looks like it is still up.
https://directfile.irs.gov/
Not for long.
Looks like the entire development and pilot to date has cost about $31M. So, the entire program cost about 2% of the amount of a single $1.26B contract that ICE recently “awarded” to one guy, as I posted in the ICE thread.
oof
The White House has no current plans to mandate insurance coverage for in vitro fertilization, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to expand access to fertility treatments
White House officials say expanding IVF access remains a priority, but legal constraints prevent mandating coverage without Congressional approval, and no bill is currently planned
Rents anyone?
Let’s keep on shuffling the money up the pyramid.
Donald Trump’s PBS replacement has astonished critics with a cartoon version of Christopher Columbus saying “slavery was no big deal.”
The short social media video originally posted by American actor and comedian Darryl Lynn Hughley ( @realdihughley ) shows Columbus, saying: “Slavery is as old as time and has taken place in every corner of the world. Even among people I just left. Being taken as a slave is better than being killed no? Before you judge you must ask yourself, what did the culture and society at the time treat as no big deal?”
Believe it or not, there have been abolitionists for as long as there’s been slavery.
My personal morality doesn’t revolve around “what society will let me get away with punishment-free.”
