I donno. Those penguins on Heard Island are pretty crafty. They want you to THINK that there are no exports to the USA and the corrupt media fell for it. But, in fact, they are shipping fentanyl to the U.S. “in amounts like nobody has ever seen before. Nobody even knows how much!”
That’s why Trump had appointed Walter White as ambassador to Heard Island—to get tough with them—until somebody informed the President that White was not available. (That was a disappointment to Trump because Walter White is only exceeded by Hannibal Lecter and Vladimir Putin in Trump’s admiration.)
Today I felt like I was reliving the beginning of COVID pandemic because I was online and in retail stores buying several years of supplies that are going to shoot up in price (e.g., shoes, canned seafoods; pharmaceuticals.)
That said, COTTAGE CHEESE has been scarce in every store in town for weeks now. I can’t find any news reports for why this would be. (All I can find are stories of short supplies in England due to influencers recommending low-fat cottage cheeses in place of cream and butter in all sorts of recipes. California had such a run a couple of years ago.)
It could be worse, Trump presumably wants workers willing to hand-pollinate vanilla flowers, to replace imports from Madagascar (47% tariff). Madagascar’s average per capita annual GDP was around $500 in 2023.
Doesn’t that sound like a rewarding and well-paying job?
Is it me, or does it seem that, whilst the Trump Administration says many silly or stupid things, the most jaw-droppingly-moronic statements seem to be coming from Howard Lutnick?
His bio doesn’t seem to indicate that he’s a complete idiot. Is it possible that he has such a severe case of stage-fright, that whenever a camera is pointed at him his brain freezes and lets him say really dumb things?
My daughter is at Haverford College, his alma mater. The library is named after him but he is not terribly popular there right now. I think he is probably very clever within his expertise, but he is not so great outside those bounds. And his skills are inward looking, nerdy skills, which do not necessarily come with the best judgment in use of the powers of expression. Nothing against nerds; I consider myself one; but we aren’t always good at expressing our ideas with careful attention to what others will take from them.
How about him just being plain old corrupt and standing to personally gain from allying himself with the Dear Leader Trump Jong-Un? A story as old as time. Get too close to power and wealth and all your principles suddenly evaporate.
Tricky Dicky Nixon was corrupt – but smart as a tack from all accounts. I don’t think this is about level of corruption (though not claiming that he isn’t* corrupt) so much as an inability to speak in public, about many issues within his portfolio, without sticking his foot firmly in his mouth.
“Mind-numbingly stupid” was my thought when I saw an Lutnick interview.
Has a strange mutation in some cognitive-decline virus become contagious? I keep seeing people representing the administration saying things which any Econ 201 Macro-Economics student would know to be laughable.
Yes. Another example is Rubio, who has been a fierce advocate of free trade for his entire career. Unlike many other’s in the cabinet, however, he has a hard time faking his enthusiasm (assuming the rest of them are faking). Whenever defending Trump’s policies, whether on tariffs or Ukraine or whatever, he looks like he just swallowed a large spoonful of cod liver oil.
Sean Carroll addresses a topic which continues to baffle me. As he says, Trump is “a deeply stupid person.” I certainly agree with that. (It explains in part why he declared bankruptcy six times—though he “groups” some of them together and says “only four times”—and manages to sink virtually every one of his companies eventually.) But Carroll also says that he is surrounded by “Absolutely stupid people.” I certainly agree that he has collected many stupid sycophants to kiss his feet and agree with him 24/7. But I wonder about the people who work for him who seem to have backgrounds and academic credentials which would tend to indicate considerable intellectual capabilities. So they surely must know enough Econ 201 “Intro to Macroeconomics” to realize just how stupid and disastrous his policies are.
In many ways those people scare me more. They are willing to serve the king and cooperate in this nuclear mass destruction apparently for the sake of plans to succeed him (e.g., Rubio) or perhaps personal wealth. (e.g., Knowing what was going to happen, did they use some shadow investment entity difficult to trace to them to short sell various stocks?)
And here’s an interview with the very surprised economist whose paper was misused by Trump to produce that idiotic equation which determined each country’s tariff rate:
I have wondered if the current chaos might eventually prove merciful in that if Trump manages to cause massive damage quickly (instead of slowly), might enough sane leaders and even MAGA followers seeing destruction ahead decide to rein him in before supply chains collapse and massive long-term “economic infrastructure” damage occurs? [Sorry. That’s a mouthful sentence but I’m too lazy to edit it into multiple sentences this early in my day.]
I’m still trying to guess what “FA’ed” means. I ran that sentence and the acronym through two AI engines, Poe, and a general Google search and came up with nothing. (I sometimes have to do that with Internet acronyms of younger people which are totally unknown to me.) I thought initially that it was a typo version of “f*@#ed with China” but letter-u and letter-a are on nearly opposite sides of the keyboard, so that is unlikely.
As to Trump and China, I think China will continue to match ante with him.
The term is “F*ck Around and Find Out”. Usually means you act in a way that ends up getting you slapped around (or otherwise made to regret your actions) because you acted wrong in the wrong company.
