The Frankish Reich

True. Trump wouldn't have won with only true MAGAs. He needed to pull in a sizable number of prior Biden/Obama voters. I'm enjoying the "Rich Guy Slips Up and Tells Us What He Really Thinks" moments. First, Commerce Secretary Lutnick: if you complain about a missed social security check, you're probably a fraudster. Anyone else can just wait. Now, Treasury Sec Bessent says people approaching retirement don't really care about or watch the markets https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/bessent-americans-retire-arent-worried-stock-market-recession-rcna199892 Yeah, right. Let's say you've been successful and financially prudent. You have a 401k worth a million bucks. Or it was worth a million buck a week ago. Now it's worth less than $900,000. Remember, you're a conservative investor. You're a 60 year old male. You had planned to buy a life annuity to eliminate risk of loss. Last week that annuity would've paid you about $5700 a month. Add social security and any other pension and you're sitting pretty. Now that annuity would pay only about $5100 a month. Big deal, says Bessent. That's only $600 a month. Only $7200 a year. Who cares? Chump change. Hell, hubby John and I paid the surrogate 5X more than that. That's our oligarchy. Government by the billionaire class. Miss a check, be late on rent? So what. Work another two year to replenish that 401k? No biggie.

Right. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/stop-looking-for-methods-in-the-madness

From Eric Columbus: This is like O.J. attending Nicole’s funeral (which he did, and for the same reason).

I think white male native born (except of illegal immigrants!) non-felon landowners is what he's trying to say.

Absolutely. Small businesses operate on small inventories. I can sell that case of champagne for $1000 today that I bought from a wholesale distributor for $900. 10% profit margin. But to replenish my inventory, I'm gonna need to pay that distributor $1080. Where's that excess cash lying around to pay the extra 20%? Answer: there isn't any. I've gotta charge maybe $1100 for that case of champagne to have enough to keep my inventory up to sell the next case. And that's with me eating way more than half the cost of the tariff, which doesn't leave me with enough margin to keep my 5 employees on board. Maybe I let one go and work a few more hours myself. And so on.

Conveniently including a Texas stop where he can do a victory dance at the grave of the second child (unvaxxed) measles victim.

I like the spell check - "terrors" (tariffs)

Recommendation for all Sane Non-Troll Posters: do not feed the troll. This is a duplicate thread made by some fool so he can try to commandeer the conversation in the dumbest possible direction. There is a better thread on Trump and Tariffs. Ignore ("my favorite word in the English language") his stupid copycat threads. Let him self-pleasure he as much as he wants. I will not post on his threads anymore. He is, of course, free to ignore my threads. Which he won't.

And it's the return of Jimmy Carter! A little self-sacrifice in this latest Time of Malaise.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I'm pretty sure it's Marxist.

Hmm, Britain got the 10% default tariff and is trying to make the best of it. It advantages Britain relative to most U.S. trade partners. Hardly a resounding endorsement when you start off "we disagree"

tl;dr: The Fed will be forced to print more money to finance the debt, and the ensuing inflation will drive up nominal stock prices. I think they call that Bidenomics.

Not bad. Do I detect just a tiny bit of Trump pessimism creeping into the Trumposphere? Makes business sense. Get all that user preference data and cherry-pick the best stuff for your own retail business.

Trump: hey, let's import our own voters! And these ones will have the ID to prove it! I want nothing more than to have a parade of Russian oligarchs an PRC supporters to decide our next election.

Like the USA - the land of the dairy farm subsidy - has any moral standing to whine.

So inefficient. We could have just had a Photoshop guy create a mock-up like Trump did.

And there you have it in one tweet: the difference between a true anti-communist (Reagan) and a fake one (Trump). Reagan viewed the USSR and the PRC as oppressive societies stifling human freedom. Our goal was to eliminate those systems - through economic force, a strong defense presence, and the power of our democratic-capitalist system. It was to free China and the USSR by winning the battle of ideologies because, after all, he believed our system was the best the world ever created. Trump? He thinks to beat China we need to become China. Because, after all, our system is not the best; China's is.

Yeah! Let's be more like the PRC!! That's the America I always dreamed of.

Like I said: if you'd told me 10 years ago that in my lifetime the President would be making personnel decisions based on the advice of a "9/11 was an inside job" and "school shooting were staged" blogger, I would have thought you were crazy.

Sorry, I'm like Jeffrey Goldberg here when he was added to the Signal group. 1. Someone is pranking me. 2. I mean, this isn't real, right? [checks Twitter posters from Yemen] 3. Ho Lee Fuk

Carrying on another conversation with yourself?

Which is exactly what they're saying - "trust Trump." Just trust his "instincts." That's what makes it a cult rather than a political movement. The only good thing is it dies with his presidency, which is why he's trying to hang on for an unconstitutional third term. And that's why it's unfair to Milei and Argentina to compare their bad hair guy to our's. Milei has a coherent economic philosophy to go with his more authoritarian impulses to enact that philosophy by any means necessary. He's always hated tariffs, as they are anathema to freedom. https://www.cato.org/blog/milei-free-trade

Remember this guy, the one who scolded his left-behind community for wallowing in self-pity and looking for someone to blame for their poor life decisions?

Pretty good! You've redeemed yourself on the sense of humor spectrum. At least until the next Babylon Bee groaner.