CNBC’s previous propaganda on how the US could weather tariffs:
And their tune NOW!
Analyst: “Gee: is the drop in Tesla price due to the tariffs, or his association with Trump?”
Gee, I dunno; considering Trump will carve out a protection for Tesla, as Biden had done [before Musk turned tail], MAYBE it’s the association? Maybe?? [Which was why I found it funny that the newfound poster boy for bad economic times thought his recommending the car would save it!]
Looked to me like the analyst was trying to help Jamie (“Elon is our Einstein…”) Dimon unload all his clients’ Tesla shares.
I guess we were getting sick of all that winning in the stock market, right?
Howard Lutnick: “Crazy Howard…his [on-again, off-again, on-again, make-it-up-as-you-go-along] tariffs are INSANE!”
Lutnick: “Did you feel deep, deep pain…?” Bartiromo: “No…”
Hey -if Lutnick gets the opinions of a dozen other people who live in the Hamptons, I think we’ll have a good consensus on the state of the economy!
Something the corporate media is not pointing out (nor, so far, is the Progosphere!): When Wall Street was having sugar candy highs from the corporate tax cuts in 2017-2018, did Trumpkins also credit the setup by Obama and the Fed? No, right?? And yet now they want to blame all their batshit crazy economic antics on Biden.
The Fed had to do one hell of a Hail Mary to resuscitate the economy from what I call “The Great Closing” (the protracted Covid lockdown, which I think was ill-advised…) and the inflationary stimulus spending which followed…
The problem we are experiencing now is remnant MAGAs and Repubs thinking: “He wouldn’t malevolently destroy the economy for no good reason, would he?”
He has been shown to be a sadist who gets off on watching the suffering of others. His “groceries” statement reeked of: “Oh, you poors! You still have to be worried about GROCERIES. How quaint! I’m going to get a big kick watching what you do when you are faced with starvation…” That malevolence is not logical, but he has no logic; he became a very sick puppy.
The only end to this nightmare is 2/3rds of both the House and Senate saying they have had enough. Another possibility is a judicial challenge, but Roberts and the conservative wing have been shown to be cowardly about that. After we have a disaster area, the Court will just say it was the job of Congress to stop him.
And wait for it: the Repubs in the House will go to him in private and say it has to end, he will feign ending it; and then he will reimpose them -who knows when- and go: “Suckers!” That will be when the holdouts realize that all tariff powers have to be taken away from him…
The story so far: he just did the feign that he’s going to stop screwing with tariffs; the Repubs probably talked to him and threatened it was hitting a point of no return.
Think he’s going to still stop screwing with them after he, the consummate attention-whore, saw how much attention it got him??
We should have a lottery pool on how long it takes the House to sign on to a veto-proof majority and finally take away his tariff toy. My guess? Septemberish (provided he hasn’t done a military coup before then…)
That guess is based on the turnaround time for MAGAs who work and Indies who voted for Bunker Boy to notice the impact when they go shopping for those “quaint” groceries, and go back to their Reps and Senators to give them all hell. Between now and then, he will inevitably abuse it some more, because he will feel he needs to get the world’s attention -that, and to pull down some personal favors from foreign countries. It’s a perk of the job, don’t you know!
But you have latitude as to the levels, timetables, and sectors or products they are applied to. They did it in a completely incompetent way.
They also have discretion to negotiate in private, as opposed to making humiliating public declarations that roil the markets and make negotiations quite difficult…
A Turks Email just now labels the issue of tariffs as “a distraction” from the tax budget they just passed that favors plutocrats. I beg to disagree; this is going to rain down a lot of destitution on people who work and live paycheck to paycheck (not to say that the other issue does not also deserve our attention…)
Willful lawlessness and economic impoverishment of the working class are definitely front-burner issues…
