Robot Jazz

  Like a whipped dog forced to crawl on his belly to his masters, Trump has announced a 90-day pause on his insane tariff policy. As CNN reports: Trump announces 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs with exception of China President Donald Trump announced a complete three-month pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect at midnight, with the exception of China, a stunning reversal from a president who had insisted historically high tariffs were here to stay. But enormous tariffs will remain on China, the world’s second-largest economy. In fact, Trump said they will be increased to 125% from 104% after China announced additional retaliatory tariffs against the United States earlier Wednesday. All other countries that were subjected to reciprocal tariff rates Wednesday will see rates go back down to the universal 10% rate, he said. Remember that this announcement was made via a social media post, not as part of a formal announcement at the White House. I suspect this...

  I was too lazy today to use AI to generate an image, so here is an apropos editorial cartoon I found on Musk's dumpster fire.  God bless editorial cartoonists, some of whom have resigned from their jobs  because of censorship in this dark age of ignorance and intolerance.  Mark Twain, back in 1873, published a book for these times. It was called The Gilded Age  and dealt with the political corruption and materialism of Feurer Trump's favorite American period, the late 19th Century. Twain's legendary wit is on display from the title itself - a "gilded age" being a fraudulent substitute for an authentic golden age.   As Trump is so fond of repeating, the late 19th Century was a time when the US government was funded by tariffs on international trade. It wasn't until the early 20th Century that America switched to a progressive income tax to fund the government with the ratification of the 16th Amendment. But why the switch? Simply, tariffs are a tax on...

  It is a Sunday, so there is not much to talk about headline-wise. But there is something that has been on my mind.  It is something that I like to call the 'GOP Wraparound'. Now, what is this?   A wraparound is video game terminology for when a video game character, say good ol' PacMan, moves so far to the right of the game screen that he instantaneously  wrapsaround  to the left side of the screen. It is a common aspect of old-school sidescrollers and looks like this: Right to left, round and round they go. Well, this spatial twisting of reality does have a real-world counterpart, and that would be the world of politics.  You can see it happening right now with the Republican Party. Under the influence of MAGA and Donald Trump, the GOP has moved so far right that it is now a party that advocates left-wing policies.   Take, for example, this recent madness of crippling tariffs imposed by Team Trump.  I am old enough to remember that pr...

  Behold your perverse god, MAGA, in all his shameful perfidy and obesity.  Just a quick entry tonight, but an important one. Today, over 600,000   Americans took to the streets to peacefully  protest the destructive fascism that has taken root in the nation's capital like a loathsome weed.   It is a glorious thing: Mass Protests Across the Country Show Resistance to Trump They came out in defense of national parks and small businesses, public education and health care for veterans, abortion rights and fair elections. They marched against tariffs and oligarchs, dark money and fascism, the deportation of legal immigrants and the Department of Government Efficiency. Demonstrators had no shortage of causes as they gathered in towns and cities across the country on Saturday to protest President Trump’s agenda. Rallies were planned in all 50 states, and images posted on social media showed dense crowds in places as diverse as St. Augustine, Fla.; Salt Lake City ...

  In my previous post, I predicted that the results of Trump's Smoot-Hawley 2.0 would be bad.  But even I didn't expect that two-day drop-off that we are witnessing in the markets: As the accompanying New Zork Times article relates:  The S&P 500 dropped more than 10 percent in two days and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index closed in a bear market on Friday, capping one of Wall Street’s worst weeks since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The U.S. rout followed losses in global markets. Worries about an escalating global trade war set off by President Trump overshadowed a positive reading on Friday about the health of the American labor market. To put this in perspective, over the last two days , Donald Trump has presided over a staggering   6.6  trillion dollar loss  due to his economic incompetence . To put that in perspective further, since taking office Team Trump has lost over 11 trillion dollars of economic value due to destru...

  In the late 1920s, two Republicans, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Representative Willis C. Hawley of Oregon decided that they had the solution to America's worsening economic situation due to what would become known as The Great Depression. Their answer was simple: tariffs. America would tax its way to prosperity - a tariff being nothing more than a tax on imported goods paid by the consumer.  Anyone with a high school education in either history or politics knows the results: an economic disaster that only worsened the depression. As  Wikipedia relates: Some countries protested and others also retaliated with trade restrictions and tariffs. American exports to the protesters fell 18% and exports to those who retaliated fell 31%.[18] Threats of retaliation by other countries began long before the bill was enacted into law in June 1930. As the House of Representatives passed it in May 1929, boycotts broke out, and foreign governments moved to increase rates against Amer...