“[T]ucked away in section 6B of Trump’s day-one executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border was this pearl, which I’ve set in bold and italics so you can’t miss it: ‘Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.’ Since we can assume the report from the secretaries will reflect Trump’s preferences, by the end of this month we’ll have a clear signal of the likelihood of his invoking the Insurrection Act — a previously unfathomable step that would dramatically escalate the administration’s already deeply controversial detention and deportation efforts.” (04/04/25)
“The customs tariffs imposed on imported goods by President Donald Trump on April 2 will, according to some estimates, bring the average US tariff higher than after the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 …. As these tariffs are a tax on American consumers … the impact on the cost of living will be significant. The poorest Americans, a large part of whom voted for Trump, will be the hardest hit. … However, the costly shock that will hit the American economy and the world may have a silver lining. If Mr. Trump does not rapidly back up or is not rapidly forced to, the episode will show again what economists have known for nearly three centuries and what economic history has constantly confirmed — that mercantilism has disastrous effects on most of the population.” (04/04/25)
“Let us be honest: When most people hear ‘tariffs,’ they think about price hikes and trade wars. But the Trump administration’s latest tariff rollout is not merely a knee-jerk protectionist move — it is part of a far broader strategy. What is actually in play here is a high-stakes effort to build up leverage and resources to manage America’s debt, reset its industrial base, and renegotiate its standing in the global order. And it all begins with a problem most people have not been told enough about. In 2025, the U.S. government must refinance $9.2 trillion in maturing debt. Some $6.5 trillion of that comes due by June.” [editor’s note: The only “broader strategy” this insanity could plausibly be part of is wrecking the US economy – TLK] (04/05/25)
“[I]n order to eliminate trade deficits with other nations that aren’t really a problem to begin with, the Trump administration is hiking tariffs to raise the cost of imported goods so that Americans will buy less of them. That’s interference in the free reciprocal exchanges chosen by consumers and businesses. And the price of that interference comes out of Americans’ pockets. That’s because, as the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante warns, tariffs are taxes that, while partially paid by foreign firms, are mostly a burden for people in the countries that impose them — especially as they rise to the heights we now see.” (04/04/25)
“Trump, his team, and his allies are dismissing all the panic as the result of the ‘fake news media’ reaching for new lies to try and tarnish his public support and cover up all the success his administration is having in this second term. And after the last ten years of biased, misleading, and outright false coverage deployed by the establishment media to unsuccessfully go after Trump, that’s a believable angle. Establishment politicians, official ‘experts,’ and media figures have cried wolf so many times that it’s remarkable that anyone still trusts them. However, that does not necessarily mean that they are wrong one hundred percent of the time. And in this case, the establishment media and the mainstream economic ‘experts’ are more right than wrong in their warnings about these new tariffs.” (04/04/25)
“The fate of the nation, as we have all learned, hangs on the price of eggs. But have you noticed that the price of some eggs has risen much faster than others? In the past, if you went down to your farmers’ market and bought eggs laid by local free-range hens living under humane conditions, you had to pay a big premium. But now, if you go to Walmart or Kroger and buy conventional eggs produced by caged hens on supposedly super-efficient industrial-scale farms, you are likely to pay just as much or even more. How can this be? Part of the answer lies with the bird flu outbreak, which has affected different kinds of poultry operations differently. But another factor appears to be just as important: corporate conclusion [sic] and resulting greedflation.” (04/04/25)
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & David Swanson
“We are passionate supporters of all but one of the items on the Hands Off agenda for the April 5 rallies. We couldn’t agree more that the corrupt U.S. government should stop destroying, privatizing, firing, and giving away the post office, schools, land, Social Security, healthcare, environmental protections, and all sorts of essential public services. But we are deeply disturbed to see NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) on the list of items that we are rallying to protect. Many people believe that NATO is a peace-loving, defensive alliance, but the opposite is true. During the past 30 years, NATO has fomented a vast arc of violence stretching from Libya to Afghanistan, leaving villages bombed, infrastructure destroyed, and countless dead. Originally formed in opposition to the Soviet Union, NATO not only failed to disband with the fall of the Soviet Union, but it increased from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today.” (04/05/25)
“Menger (1840-1921), a professor at the University of Vienna, launched the Austrian school of economics with his trailblazing Principles of Economics, published in 1871. (It was not translated into English until 1950.) He is famous for being one of three economists who independently and nearly simultaneously shifted economics onto a radically different track: marginal utility. Hence, the term marginal revolution in economics. This was a radical recasting of value and price theory.” (04/04/25)
“A French criminal court ruling forbidding Marine Le Pen from contesting the 2027 presidential election could throw the country into turmoil.” (04/04/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout
“Between 2015 and 2018, the United States supplied Saudi Arabia with tens of millions of dollars worth of jet fuel in support for the kingdom’s bombing campaign in Yemen. Seven years later, the Saudis refuse to repay most of their debt. And they are being rewarded for it.” (04/04/25)
