There are a lot of deniers here saying that waste is the big problem in the Western countries, and in America, they are axing what they perceive as waste. In truth, it is just gutting the economy, and reinstalling a feudal class that puts the middle and working class into a stagnation of poverty, whilst billionaires and trillionaires get richer all the time.
This video shows the simple facts while cutting out the static from Morgan and Rubin, who are clearly compromised and complicit.
Gary is a smart lad. Piers is a dullard
That’s why the billionaires lined up behind Trump at his inauguration. He gave them a huge tax cut in his first term and he will give them a bigger one this year.
“The economy” should not equal “people who get government-given free moneys”.
Any government-given moneys were stolen either from someone alive today (taxes or inflation), someone in the future (debt or inflation), or someone in a foreign country (ask Libya et al. about that). And usually given to someone who is not using that money to productively create new economic value for others. So… just a pure waste, but one that makes the receiver happy and the politicalclones feel good about their “well-meaning liberal vibes”, Ugh gross.
The economy would be amazingly improved if ALL government-given payments of moneys (stolen from someone and given to someone else) ceased. And no, that is not a support of ancap nonsense. Or a refutation of social security, which has some justification. Just basic common sense.
If you want charities, then do that, and give and support accordingly. Heck I will even support local and state-level government-giving. But federal? No way in hell that is going to end well. The federal government isnt even required to balance its own budgets, lol… seriously, how did you think that would end?
I think that if you look at where money comes from, it is what the state prints. It is an exchange means, rather than lumbering gold around, which is what the monetary value has been based upon and the reason why gold transactions are closely controlled.
Now, what Gary is saying is that game theory is not a good basis for economics if the aim is the common good, because it always causes an imbalance and rips people at the bottom end of the chain off. It is almost a natural development and all the talk about people at the bottom picking themselves up by their bootstraps is obviously garbage, because the mathematics works for those able to speculate against those who cannot.
The rule of thumb in his mind to correct this imbalance is to tax earnings by labour/work less and wealth more to reduce the natural flow of wealth to the already wealthy. That alone would give more people incentive, rather than seeing their wealth diminish no matter what they do. His point about his father being able to support his family and buy a modest house on an average wage is what many people at my age have seen growing increasingly difficult because the rich speculators killed the housing market, profits made inflation rise and now even two people working full time have difficulty achieving what one person did before.
He even shows the clear transfer of wealth during the pandemic, when governments paid out trillions, but today nobody other than the super-rich has anything to show for it. He says, potentially, in Britain, every single member of the population could be 20,000 pounds better off after these expenditures, but they are worse off than before the pandemic.
The “Golden Age of Capitalism” in America was when the super-rich were being taxed at over 90% after the war from 1946-1963. That is historical proof that what he says is right. Those were the ‘boom years’ and people had more incentive than today. At the moment, we are returning back to the stagnancy of feudal landowners, in which people are reliant upon the super-rich for give-aways and accused of being lazy because of that.
Admittedly, when the rich are taxed more, it should make people complacent and sit back. With a better situation, Gary suggests that people should:
This is what happened in the boom years because people had a sense of achieving something. Engaging in society also makes democracy work, because people have the feeling that they are part of a whole and are prepared to work for that. The ‘American Dream’ or any motivator can’t be to make millionaires into billionaires etc. It has to promote the common good and give people a sense of purpose.
This is a naive view.
“Governed people”??
WTF are they?
The government was orignally designed to be the servant of the people.
But you like the rest of the MAGA cult are now sleepwalking into tryanny.
HumAnIze:
The economy” should not equal “people who get government-given free moneys”.
Any government-given moneys were stolen either from someone alive today (taxes or inflation), someone in the future (debt or inflation), or someone in a foreign country (ask Libya et al. about that). And usually given to someone who is not using that money to productively create new economic value for others. So… just a pure waste, but one that makes the receiver happy and the politicalclones feel good about their “well-meaning liberal vibes”, Ugh gross.
The economy would be amazingly improved if ALL government-given payments of moneys (stolen from someone and given to someone else) ceased. And no, that is not a support of ancap nonsense. Or a refutation of social security, which has some justification. Just basic common sense.
If you want charities, then do that, and give and support accordingly. Heck I will even support local and state-level government-giving. But federal? No way in hell that is going to end well. The federal government isnt even required to balance its own budgets, lol… seriously, how did you think that would end?
K: and as usual, Humaize is remarkable wrong…
he has failed to understand the role the government plays
in economic creation, he is wrong about ending government
payouts would improve the economy, he is wrong about virtually
everything he wrote…
A; lets us start with the much discredited idea that taxes are theft,
they are not… think of a world without taxes… that would be
Hobbes, ‘‘state of nature’’ where everyone is against/at war
everyone else…where power lies with whomever can take it…
whereas Hobbes puts it,
"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’’
and that is life without goverment…
doubt me, take a look at countries without any form of
effect federal government, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan,
Libya, Sudan, to name a few, I am sure Humanize would
LOVE to live in any of those countries… what, he doesn’t
live in any of those countries, Wow, what a hypocrite…
the next step is his comment: ‘‘and usually given to who is not
using that money to ‘productively’’ create new economic value for
others’’
and about as wrong as one can get… give money to a poor person,
and they have to spend that money, food, gas, insurance,
medical bills… they have no choice, a person who has no
money must, must spend whatever money they get to
survive…that is obvious to anyone who has given it
a minute’s thought…give the money, especially in the
form of a tax cut, and study after study after study shows
that the wealthy either puts the money into the bank or
buys their seventh vacation home…they have no need to
spend the money and thus they don’t need the money to
survive… it can just sit there and earn them interest,
it rarely ever enters the economy… need proof…
after every single tax cut since 1918 has been followed
by a recession… every single one… tax cuts have never
been a means to ‘‘improve’’ an economy… just the
opposite… they lead to a recession… of course Humanize
has no idea the 5 federal tax cuts in American history
and their years… but to give an example, after JFK’S
tax cut, American landed in a recession of 1969/70…
(tax cuts take a few years to work their way through
the system… usually 2 or 3 years before they take effect)
Which leads us to the dumbest statement of Humanize, that
‘‘the economy would be amazingly improved if ALL government
given payments of moneys (stolen from someone and given
to someone else) ceased’’’
this statement reveals his vast ignorance of how the economy
works…it takes three ‘‘legs’’ of spending to keep an economy
going, one is business, two is consumers and three, yep,
government…doubt me, why was Keynesian economic so
successful (and still is successful) since the 1930’s?
take away the government spending, as the village idiot is
doing, and see how fast the economy collaspes…
for example, that Social Security spending you hate, that
provides back into the economy billions of dollars…
Social Security pays out 1.6 trillion dollars, and most
of that comes back into the society… doubt me,
without Social Security, most elderly can’t survive,
they have to spend that money just to live…
paying for the basics, benefits the society
in vast ways… taking away Social Security alone,
and doing nothing else will crash the American
economy within months…
without government spending and its various programs
the economy will collapse within months…
thus my economic predictions…
One: the US will fall into a recession by July,
Two: the US will be in depression by say Easter next year…
Three: that economic collapse will also take down most
of the world’s economies leading to a worldwide depression…
Four: That IQ45 will blame everyone and his mother for the coming,
certain economic collapse… but he will never, ever take the blame
because nothing is ever his fault… it is always, ALWAYS someone
else’s fault for his failures…
Five: I suspect that this economic collapse will be worse than
the 1930’s depression and the ensuing chaos and wars will
be some of the worse in history…
SIX: the stock market will do the greatest fall in the
history of the world… the dow is around 41,000… a drop
of a couple thousand since Biden, and in a little more
than 2 months…
I think it will fall to maybe 20 or 15 thousand points…
before it’s all over… millions of people will lose everything…
it will be a blood bath of biblical proportions and of course,
IQ45 will never admit it…
Personally, I am retiring at the end of this year, around dec 6…
my retirement will be quite short and end with no money at all…
and millions of people will be in my exact same shoes…
I guess that can give me some comfort,…
that I will be destitute and without a home…
with no way to recover my money… I am so fucked…
but with the comfort of knowing that you too will be
fucked beyond belief… you just don’t know it yet…
and no, living outside of America isn’t going to save you…
every single country on earth is going to feel some major
economic collapse… but you don’t know enough to realize
this…
Kropotkin
I’ll tell you what free money is, and it is that which is the ruin of the economy.
Money that is gained, from the fact of having money, power and influence.
Rents
stocks and shares
crypto
subsidies
These are the means by which people acquire wealth WITHOUT WORKING for it.
The most agregious of these is the subsidies gained to research things like drugs which make huge profits for Big Pharma; electric cars which Musk has received $38 billion for; susidies on sugar, wheat, corn which has turned the US population into diabetic, and obese people following trumped up dietary guidlines…
Buying contracts. Hand Trump $2million and you get to run the country. Musk already has given himself satellite contracts in the FAA and Weather Services.
ANd so besides that. there are people who earn an honest wage and pay taxes THROUGH WORKING for a living. Now with idiot MAGAchuds the US people have convinced themselves that Medicare, Medicade and Social Security WHICH THEY HAVE PAID FOR WITH THEIR taxation, is to be swept aside because what??? “Empathy?”
Rents
stocks and shares
crypto
subsidies
These are the things that should be taxed
DO not tax earning; tax static wealth.
The tariffs announced on Wednesday were far higher than experts had expected, and are likely to drive up prices for American consumers and manufacturers.
not likely to drive up prices, but guaranteed to drive
up prices, which is the point of the tariffs… to make
living in American impossible for the working poor or
even the middle class… it is just another attempt to
destroy the working/middle class by the oligarchs…
make America safe for the oligarchs and screw everyone
else…
Kropotkin
The layoffs begin:
Stellantis said on Thursday it was temporarily laying off 900 workers at five U.S. facilities and pausing production at one assembly plant each in Mexico and Canada, after Trump’s tariffs were announced.
Trump claimed Wednesday that sky-high new taxes on imported goods would be “reciprocal,” meaning they were payback for tariffs other countries have slapped on U.S. exports.
But the reciprocal tariffs turned out not to be based on actual levies imposed by other countries. Instead, they’re based on a formula made up by the White House ― and widely mocked by experts.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist at American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, called it “malpractice” in response to another conservative economist who called it “embarrassing.”
The formula, which resulted in wildly different tariffs for various foreign countries, including several uninhabited islands, first came to wide attention thanks partly to analysis by an anonymous social media user who reckoned the percentage rate of the tariffs matched other countries’ trade surpluses with the U.S. divided by their exports. The journalist James Surowiecki also noticed the correlation.
“They didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did,” Surowiecki wrote. “Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us.” Source:Huffpost
In other words, the supposedly reciprocal tariffs, which are supposed to combat arbitrary foreign barriers to U.S. goods, are themselves based on an arbitrary formula.
In a response on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, White House spokesman Kush Desai called the analyses “incorrect”and pointed to a fuller explanation of the formula from the U.S. Trade Representative, which claimed that other countries’ “non-tariff policies” cause them to sell more goods to the U.S. than we sell back to them.
“If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the USTR said on its website, which included a seemingly more complicated math equation and several academic citations.
MAGA extremists think that Trump is some kind of economic genius and savior who is going to bring back America’s golden age of prosperity. We’ll see how long they retain their Trump positivity if most economists are right and the economic pain becomes up close and personal to them and their families. Because that and not rational arguments seem to be what it will take to change their minds. Meanwhile the stocks tanked another day.
The Daily Beast compared Trump to Nero who figuratively fiddled while Rome burned. How bad will it have to get before the MAGA base wakes up? Unfortunately due to a family emergency, I won’t be able to go to the nationwide protest at the capitols tomorrow. But, I do hope they are massive, effective and peaceful and that they are the first step toward organization for great democratization and rule of law.
TRUMPENOMICS
By Josh Fiallo
(Josh Fiallo - The Daily Beast)
Published Apr. 3 2025 11:27AM EDT
Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
President Donald Trump’s response to a tanking U.S. stock market—brought on by his sweeping tariff announcement Wednesday—is to fly to Florida.
The president is scheduled to jet to Miami on Thursday afternoon to attend a LIV Golf tournament at his golf course in nearby Doral. He is scheduled to hang there for two-and-a-half hours before attending a “LIV Dinner,” his schedule says.
Trump’s dinner is slated to begin at 7:30 p.m. and he is expected to stay for an hour-and-a-half. Afterwards he will fly to Palm Beach by helicopter and stay the night at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump’s plan to attend the golf event was revealed Monday by the Federal Aviation Administration, which shared a notice for temporary flight restrictions that coincide with his time in area. Trump attended the tournament last year and even participated in its Pro-Am tournament in 2023.
Donald Trump walks toward the practice green before the final round of LIV Golf Miami tournament in April 2024. Reinhold Matay/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
Those at Trump’s course spotted a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter landing at the 9th hole of Trump National Doral—a likely dry run for Thursday, reported the Palm Beach Post.
Photos of Trump soaking in the Florida sun are sure to be scrutinized by both friends and foes who have been impacted by the stock market’s nosedive since his “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced Wednesday afternoon.
The S&P 500 opened down 3.4 percent Thursday morning, while the Nasdaq 100 was down 4.1 percent. Companies with most of its manufacturing abroad—like in the tech and apparel industries—took a big hit with Apple down 8.5 percent and Nike down 13 percent.
Markets Plunge as Wall Street Panics Over Trump’s Trade WarSO MUCH WINNING
Trump declared a national emergency Wednesday to give him broad power to put at least a 10 percent tariff on essentially all imported goods, as well as higher tariffs on automakers and countries he claims have treated the U.S. particularly bad.
The decision left hordes of economists scratching their head. CNBC panelist Bonawyn Eison sounded the alarm Wednesday that the tariffs were “probably worse than the worst case scenario that was modeled.”
Others questioned the Trump administration’s attention to detail after a White House graphic revealed it implemented new tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are full of penguins but have no human residents in the southern Indian Ocean. Tariffs were also placed on the small Norwegian island Jan Mayen—a former whaling station that does not have a permanent population.
It is unclear when Trump plans to return to Washington from South Florida. The Post reports he has spent “part or all of 20 days in Palm Beach County during the first 70 days of his second term.”
Highly based 
What will it take to change the minds of the Trump cult? The tariffs announced on Wednesday are roughly 10 times as high as those of most other industrialized countries, and higher than the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs (of Great Depression fame).
Meanwhile Trump is enjoying the rush of flexing his tariff muscles and demonstrating that he is the most powerful man in the world. Is this why the average worker voted for him? I don’t think so. He promised that the prices would go down immediately when he took office. He’s a master of the bait and switch. Supercon!
Yeah - the most healthy economy in the West because of Biden’s recovery from teh COVID pandemic.
The only emergency is the fact that there is a moron in charge of the USA.
MY family has already lost £24,000 as a Direct result of Trump.
When the Markets open again, we are probably going to loose a whole lot more.
One thing is clear, The draconian powers of the POTUS have to be curbed. TRump is pissing all over the so-called “Checks&Balances” democratic system.
Right. Much of what Trump is doing is vengeance against liberal democratic institutions that rejected him. Biden inadvertently facilitated Trump’s re-election by trying to hang onto power too long. But, Trump wants to destroy every trace of the Biden legacy.
The E.U. has the second-largest consumer market in the world behind America; China is third. Will Europe pivot toward China now?
The UK got a better tariff deal from Trump than the EU. If they align with the EU Trump will try to punish them. But, really, what does Trump have to offer them?
The Democratic party is beginning to organize a response. But they need to change direction to regain the support of working class Americans.
I am very interested in the response to this vile
attempt to destroy America… to destroy America,
politically, economically, socially and philosophically…
The demonstrations today are a start, but only a start…
and they will have virtually no impact because they will
be ignored… it won’t be talked about in the media
because the media is owned by the very forces attempting
to destroy America…
Within the Kantian questions lies three questions,
''What am I/we to do?" ''What can I/we know?"
and ''What are we to believe in?"
So, what am I/we to do about this current fascist attempt
to destroy America? For the oligarchs trying to gain control
over everything, they want us to stay silent, passive, hopeless…
for silence is acceptance of the destruction of America…
if one remains silent, one has accepted the current course
of action… silence is acceptance… so let us try this…
I protest by standing on a street corner and raise my voice…
and who will listen? few if any… I am one lone voice, and
rarely does one lone voice have any impact, but two voices,
three voice or more, one must be attention to each voice
as the number increase… for a million voices are loud,
and can’t be dismissed… one voice, it is too quiet to be heard…
So, the start begins by raising our voices collectively…
and if enough voices are heard, attention must be paid…
but raising our voices is not enough… we must act in some
fashion… and soon will come the strikes and other acts
that will demonstrate a commitment to freedom and democracy…
This leads us to the second Kantian question, ''What are
I/we to believe in?" Why should we oppose this attack on
America? and here lies one of the fundamental differences
between conservatives and liberals… one of the keys, if
one of the fundamental key beliefs of conservatives is the
hierarchy of existence… that there is a natural order to things…
some are superior to others, humans are superior to animals,
god is superior to man, kings are superior to the crowds…
doctorships/monarchies are superior to democracy…
and it is on this basis that conservatives accept this
destruction of America… that conservatives hate democracies
is not something new… of course, the conservatives believe
themselves to be superior… think of Nietzsche Übermensch,
and conservatives think they are the Übermensch…the superior
ones… with no justification for such a belief, but this belief
is not rational nor is it logical, it is preordained by the natural
order of things or so they believe… and confirmed by
the flimsiest of evidence, wealth… one’s wealth is confirmation
of the superiority of one compared to others… wealth,
a trinket of existence is proof of one’s place in the world’s
heirarchy… there is very little more ‘‘ad hoc’’ then wealth…
and it is on the basis of this transitory nature of wealth that
the oligarchs proclaim their superiority over all others…
and it is on this basis that they proclaim they can destroy
America…
when I was a kid, we had a rule, if you can’t share, you
can’t participate… and the oligarchs are unable to share,
they are so addicted to wealth, they cannot share their wealth…
if you can’t share, you can’t participate, and I believe this
rule applies to us as adults… and several billionaires get
this rule… Gate for example, he does share… others like
Buffett and Cuban…
and so, to carry out our rule, one must understand that
within political systems, the idea that to participate one
must share, is the heart of a democracy…
a democracy is a political theory that only by
acting and sharing together can we survive and
prosper… it is the old rule of the couch… to move
a couch, one person will greatly struggle, two people
it is easier, and with every additional person moving
that couch gets easier and easier… and one’s
individual burden gets less and less with each
additional person… with 6 people moving a couch,
my own individual effort is pretty small… and that right
there is the entire point of democracy/government…
with our collective efforts, the actions we take require
less and less individual effort…
which is why taxes for example, must be undertaken
by all concerned… the wealthy cannot be exempt,
for by their money, the overall effort become less
and less… what America has is not an entitlement
problem, as the wealthy claim, but a revenue problem…
not enough wealth going to make our lives individually
easier… thus every single time a person escapes paying
taxes, as IQ45 has done for years, it increases everyone
else’s taxes… making it harder for us individually…
but forcing the wealthy and corporations to pay their
fair share of taxes, will reduce the individual burden on
each of us… and therein lies the point of progressive
taxes… think of the couch in terms of taxes…
sharing our burdens reduces our own individual efforts
which benefits us individually… and therein lies
the lesson of democracy… and its philosophy…
that the basis of existence is sharing… and we
see this within every community… and the heart
of the human experience lies within the community…
for human beings are communal creatures…
we exist because within our evolutionary history,
we grew and become human because of our
associations with each other… the path for us in
becoming human lies within us becoming a tribe…
and we still belong, to a great extent, within tribal
thinking… (which we must change if we are to continue
to grow as human beings)
The history of human beings lies within the ability to be
a community with other human beings… that is the basis
of being human… the entire basis of civilization…
and for civilization to succeed, we must, must be able
to share with each other… and work with each other…
the oligarchs attack on our society/state is an attack on
us being human… for we can only succeed together,
being, acting, sharing together… individually, we cannot
shape our fate… for our very existence is intertwined with
each other… and political systems such as a democracy
acts upon this basic notion… to fulfill our evolutionary
goal, of going from animal to becoming human, requires
us to bring democracy to all human beings…
Kropotkin
Actually no, what Trump is ostensibly trying to do is remove waste, fraud and unconstitutional institutions. The federal government has no business doing most of what it does, such things are reserved powers for the states and the people and EXPRESSLY forbidden to the federal government by the US Constitution.
By axing bloated, wasteful bureaucracies at the federal level we not only reduce deficits and help the overall budget, but remind people that these functions must be done by the states and the people. Why? Because only the federal government has no legal requirement to balance its budget. States do. And people… if they don’t balance their budget they don’t have a magic money printer to fall back on.
And you wonder why the US federal debt is 38 trillion? Well maybe you don’t wonder, I would imagine the debt is nothing you ever worry about or even think about much.
But to frame the cost-cutting and federal-level reductions in illegal unconstitutional powers, as some kind of mere political vendetta against… biden? That is laughbale. Biden didn’t even win his first election, he was handed the crown by those who are able to hand such things over. Trump knows this, because he was then handed that same crown, and he is doing his part in the stageplay. Don’t mistake me for naive, but at least try to understand the basics here.
Agitprop is one thing, logic is another. And one is always being played off and tested against the other, if only for further refinements on their part but at least, I mean at the very fucking least, we can minimally aspire to the basic cognitive capacity to identify some real truths from the morass of shit out there.
