“President Donald Trump has predicted that his tariffs could raise as much as $6 trillion over the next decade in federal tax collections. These include up to 104% tariffs on China, plus the combination of reciprocal tariffs — we charge them whatever they charge us. Also, don’t forget the protectionist tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber, etc. The tariff rates put on the table by Trump are higher than those at any other time in the last century, so it is no wonder we’ve seen a painful stock selloff, reducing asset values by well over $7 trillion. But what the markets are missing is that Trump has also announced that money raised from the tariffs will be offset by other tax cuts.” [editor’s note: Then show me the tax cuts! Until those are in realtime, the tariff thing is never going to help much – SAT] (04/09/25)
“Former President Joe Biden wanted coal miners to learn to code and transition to newer jobs. Donald Trump does not want to transition Americans to higher technical jobs, but to instead create less technical jobs that people are not currently doing. It is a progressive approach. Instead of ‘learn to code’ it is ‘make the t-shirt.’ What Trump supporters miss is that the United States outsourced its less technical manufacturing to third-world nations and now manufactures more technical goods here. In Northwest Georgia, Vice President JD Vance lamented the closure of a t-shirt manufacturing facility. He wanted it restored. What he missed is that while that plant closed, the carpet manufacturer expanded. Not only is carpet manufacturing more technical than t-shirt manufacturing, but it pays better.” (04/08/25)
“There are many innocent Yemenis that are dead today when they should be alive, but the president made an arbitrary and illegal decision that killed them. This should be front and center in the coverage and discussion of the bombing campaign, but it has received relatively little attention. Senators have been outraged about the hypothetical danger that U.S. pilots might have been in because of the administration’s security lapses, but they seem to be unaware of the actual deaths of the innocents that those pilots killed.” (04/08/25)
“There was the retaliatory chicken tax in 1964. West Germany placed tariffs on our poultry, so LBJ responded with a 25% tariff on light trucks. I don’t know anyone who questions Ronald Reagan’s free trade bonafides, yet he imposed a 45% tariff on imported motorcycles to protect Harley Davidson. Japanese bikes were overtaking the market. The motorcycle tariff, as it became known, expired in 1988. I should probably be thankful for that since I ride a Yamaha. My first experience dealing with tariffs as a journalist was in 2002. President George W. Bush imposed tariffs on steel because countries were ‘dumping’ steel in the U.S. at below-market prices. Steel companies were filing bankruptcy and laying off workers. It seemed so obvious that something needed to be done. But it’s a little more complicated. I didn’t realize at the time that lots of people and companies really don’t care where their shit comes from.” (04/08/25)
“US antitrust enforcement is likely to change in the new administration. However, it is also likely that the antitrust cases against big tech firms – and concerns about their effects on society – will continue. Over the past years, countries all around the world have passed or are considering new laws which antitrust authorities can use to prosecute what are seen as abuses by large tech platforms. Most notably the EU has passed and is now enforcing the Digital Markets Act. Similar new laws were proposed, but failed to pass, in the United States, telling enforcers that the way to prosecute any novel harm is to do it the traditional antitrust way: bring cases ex post against conduct that agencies deem illegal under the existing antitrust laws.” (04/08/25)
“[T]he reason for rules is to prevent arbitrary behavior. Even when there may be cases where the rules hinder some desired outcome, where the temptation to break rules is highest, rules should be followed. Once the rules are broken, once arbitrary behavior becomes the norm, it makes planning extraordinarily difficult and ends up undermining the goals of the actions. … we are seeing exactly this now with Donald Trump’s arbitrary tariff ‘policy’ (‘policy’ is in quotes here because, since there is no consistency, it’s hard to call it policy by any reasonable sense of the word). Trump’s decrees on tariffs change day to day, sometimes even hour to hour. It’s quite impossible to predict what’s going to happen as there is no rhyme nor reason to these changes.” (04/08/25)
“As Donald Trump disrupts international trade, sends suspected gangsters to indeterminate imprisonment in a Salvadoran hellhole without due process, wages war on the right to counsel, abandons American allies, and throws Ukraine under the bus — as Donald Trump does, in other words, pretty much what he promised — I haven’t written anything about this mess beyond retweeting the work of more energetic writers. Trump wants to make the United States a Peronist nation and a whole lot of people voted enthusiastically to go along with his mad ideas. Having watched friends and former allies enthusiastically embrace Trumpism, I feel like the loved ones of a smallpox victim after vaccination but before effective treatment. Yes, the illness might have been prevented. But now that it’s here, all we can do is let it run its course and hope the patient survives without too many scars.” (04/08/25)
“Recently, a viral meme in MAGA circles captured the moment, featuring a cartoon Trump addressing a faceless American: ‘Your great grandfather worked the mines, your grandfather worked in a steel plant, and you thought you could be a ‘product manager’ ???’ It’s a joke, but it’s also a worldview — one where white-collar ambition is seen not as a step forward, but as a fall into decadence. The meme doesn’t just mock digital work; it exalts physical labor as the only authentic form of contribution.
What we’re seeing is a kind of MAGA Maoism, remixed for the algorithm age. Like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it glorifies physical labor as moral purification, only now the purification is from the supposed ‘wokeness’ of desk work, filtered through TikTok, X and Twitch. It’s not about creating jobs. It’s about creating vibes: strong men doing hard things, reshared until they become ideology.” (04/08/25)
“‘The real opposition is the media,’ Donald Trump confidant Steve Bannon told Michael Lewis in 2018, ‘and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.’ … The zone is flooded. I’m always at least knee deep in Dr. Bannon’s prescription-strength fecal matter and flinging a little of it at you doesn’t seem likely to leave you better informed than you were. Many of MAGA’s supposed opponents say this situation is about ‘democracy,’ but it isn’t. It’s about reality, and about our ability to clearly discern that reality and act accordingly.” (04/08/25)
