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Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

  • Thread starter Thread starter nycfan
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  • Politics 
heelinhell said:
"China and Russia have increased their footholds in the region over the past decade, financing major infrastructure projects including deep water ports, and providing more security partnerships for authoritarian states such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela."

makings of a Caribbean Treaty Organization ( CTO ) ?
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I’m sure a lot of the older people in the region are asking what happened to FDR’s Good Neighbor Policy of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s.
 
nycfan said:
“WILL THERE BE PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). … IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

DJT 2/2/25

A bit different from his campaign rhetoric.
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This whole situation and the ascension of Musk as Trump’s archangel brought back to me threads of a Zora Neale Hurst quote, which I looked up to make sure I remembered it correctly (which mostly I did for the first two sentences, the rest was more a vague paraphrase in my memory):

“All gods who receive homage are cruel.

All gods dispense suffering without reason.

Otherwise they would not be worshipped.

Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom.

Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

— Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurst (1937)
 
lawtig02 said:
It also makes sense in terms of shortening our supply chains, and minimizing reliance on China for basic products and services. But the fluffing of the Fuhrer makes it hard to take the good parts seriously.
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What does the State department have to do with supply chains? The problem isn't that Rubio fluffs the Fuhrer. The problem is that Rubio has always been a rube and a completely unserious person from the outset. And he knows jack shit about foreign policy.

Rubio's op-ed didn't contain any good ideas in it -- not that I saw. It contained some acceptable aspirational language with no basis in reality.
 
www.nytimes.com

Security Official at Aid Agency Put on Leave After Denying Access to Musk Team

Workers at the U.S. Agency for International Development are bracing for a loss of its independent status and sweeping layoffs as President Trump continues slashing foreign aid.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

The top security official at the U.S. Agency for International Development was put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

John Voorhees, U.S.A.I.D.’s director of security, is the latest senior official at the agency to be put on administrative leave. Last week, Trump administration appointees suspended about 60 senior officials and fired hundreds of contractors. There has been talk among current and former agency employees and lawmakers that the agency could be subsumed within the State Department in a drastically reduced form.

The deputy security official working under Mr. Voorhees was also put on leave, one U.S. official said.

U.S.A.I.D., which is funded by Congress and takes some guidance from the State Department, has otherwise operated independently. Mr. Voorhees could not immediately be reached for comment.

“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post that many aid workers saw as confirmation the agency would soon be absorbed into the State Department and that some viewed as a potential threat to their personal safety. “Time for it to die.”
 
“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post‘

WTF?
 
A brief and elementary economics lesson courtesy of The Atlantic:


The Price America Will Pay for Trump’s Tariffs


The most popular beer in America is Modelo Especial, brewed in Mexico. Impose a 25 percent tariff on Modelo and sales will slide. So, too, will exports of the American barley that goes into Mexican beer. Mexico buys three-quarters of U.S. barley exports, almost all for brewing.

Trump surrogates may promise you that by driving Mexican beer off of grocery shelves, Trump’s tariffs will increase sales of U.S. barley to U.S. brewers. That promise may even be substantially true. But that offer has fine print that barley growers will notice.

Barley growers don’t care only about how much barley they sell. They care about the price at which they sell it.

A tariff raises the price of both every imported good and every good that competes with imports.

If the price of Modelo is pushed up, the price of American-brewed beer will rise as well. American beermakers are not operating a charity. The tariff on Modelo allows them to both increase their market share at Modelo’s expense and raise their prices enough to increase their margins at the consumers’ expense.

But American consumers do not have infinite amounts of money. If they are paying more for beer, they have to make savings elsewhere. The result—and economists will prove this to you all day with facts and figures—is that prices in exporting sectors such as barley, and agriculture generally, will decline in proportion as prices in the importing sectors rise.

Trump tariffs will be paid in the form of higher prices for imports and their substitutes, and lower profits and wages for everyone who works in export industries.
 
This was also written by David Frumm, but seems yet more meaningful now:

“America First” means “America Alone.” This week’s trade wars are steps on the way to future difficulties—and, unless a great infusion of better judgment or better luck suddenly occurs, future disasters."

My take: Trump seems intent on breaking up the post-war order that kept the lid on Russia and kept the peace for 80 years (since 1945 - 2025). Why is this?
 
Burgawnc said:
A brief and elementary economics lesson courtesy of The Atlantic:


The Price America Will Pay for Trump’s Tariffs


The most popular beer in America is Modelo Especial, brewed in Mexico. Impose a 25 percent tariff on Modelo and sales will slide. So, too, will exports of the American barley that goes into Mexican beer. Mexico buys three-quarters of U.S. barley exports, almost all for brewing.

Trump surrogates may promise you that by driving Mexican beer off of grocery shelves, Trump’s tariffs will increase sales of U.S. barley to U.S. brewers. That promise may even be substantially true. But that offer has fine print that barley growers will notice.

Barley growers don’t care only about how much barley they sell. They care about the price at which they sell it.

A tariff raises the price of both every imported good and every good that competes with imports.

If the price of Modelo is pushed up, the price of American-brewed beer will rise as well. American beermakers are not operating a charity. The tariff on Modelo allows them to both increase their market share at Modelo’s expense and raise their prices enough to increase their margins at the consumers’ expense.

But American consumers do not have infinite amounts of money. If they are paying more for beer, they have to make savings elsewhere. The result—and economists will prove this to you all day with facts and figures—is that prices in exporting sectors such as barley, and agriculture generally, will decline in proportion as prices in the importing sectors rise.

Trump tariffs will be paid in the form of higher prices for imports and their substitutes, and lower profits and wages for everyone who works in export industries.
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So, what you are saying is the Trump will lead the way for Bud Light's resurgence?
 
dukeman92 said:
I don’t think people realize how much trouble we’re in.
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I expected it to be far, far worse than Trump 1.0, but I didn’t expect this kind of fuckery so soon. My prognostications for where we would be in 4 years may turn out to be a best-case-scenario fantasy.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
My prognostications for where we would be in 4 years may turn out to be a best-case-scenario fantasy.
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This is always true of MAGA. It's not just you. Me too. It's not just that there's no bottom. It's that most of us don't spend time lurking in the deep. Musk and Trump are the Balrog.
 
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