Just an observation . . .

[Charmonium]

If you're wondering what the real purpose of the tariffs is, it's to provide revenue for another big high-end tax cut.

He thinks that the tariffs are going to provide enough revenue to do this without exploding the budget like last time. He got a tremendous amount of criticism for that and was a major theme in the election.

It's surprising that Trump would actually respond to such criticism but it seems the intention is to defray at least some of the impact of additional tax cuts. Of course it could also just be a fig leaf to give him some cover when he explodes the deficit again.

If you're wondering what the real, legit purpose of tariffs is, it's to help defend domestic industries from unfair competition. So if the China govt is subsidizing solar panels and then selling them here below cost, you want to slap a tariff on that bitch.

But tariffs, legit ones, need to be targeted, unless your intention is to use them offensively.

For example, you might want to use "across the board" tariffs to try to punish a country. But as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, this has to rank as the dumbest trade war in US history.

 

[Charmonium]

BTW, I'm sure everyone understands this but it's worth highlighting.

I understand how a lot of folks might think that punishing China is a worthy objective. There's their aggressive stance toward Taiwan (more "warlike" really), their aggression across the South China Sea, and I'm sure countless other actions that affect or certainly challenge the US.

But what about Canada and Mexico and whatever countries become the object of the Orange Man's ire. There were definitely concessions Trump wanted from them such as more Mexico troops on the southern border and . . . well who the f' knows what it really was for Canada.

But instead of being an actual adult human and saying what he wanted from them up front, he throws a tantrum and, I guess they're supposed to scratch their heads and figure out what the toddler wants.

But to get to the point, the idea of "punishing" China is laughable. In the meantime, he's also punishing his own people. If these tariffs actually served a purpose other than to raise revenue, that would be fine. But that's not what's going on. The tariffs aren't targeted and putting them on our closest trading partners for no real reason . . . well, I'll let you come up with the words to describe that.

 

[Charmonium]

According to news reports, Trump's policies will have a disproportional effect on red states. I really do dislike seeing people suffer - for any reason. But the unfortunate fact of human nature is that often, we don't learn until "hoisted by our own petards."

It's also a little bit comical that Trump isn't even a real Republican. Talk to any "traditional" R and they'll tell you the same thing. "R" is just branding platform for him and has nothing to do with issues Rs have historically valued.

Take deficit reduction - a primary objective of traditional Rs. Trump clearly demonstrated his utter disdain for that in his first term. And my speculation is that the only reason he's tried to come up with new revenue sources like tariffs is because business leaders won't tolerate another raid on the Treasury.

 

[Charmonium]

This probably isn't a huge surprise but the felon in chief is the most unpopular prez in the 72 year history of the Gallup Poll. This is so bad, he was under water even on the day of his inauguration - another first. And it's only gotten worse since then. I'm sure it's all laid out in a variety of articles online - which you should take a look at to see just how much the American public affirmatively dislikes this clown. Elon is doing even worse as are ALL of his cabinet choices.

This probably won't have much of an effect on Trump since the US public isn't what he's concerned with - to NO extent whatsoever. So we should assume that this shit show will continue at full speed until people start dying. And even then, I'm not sanguine about anything changing.