Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 137 of 479
Quote:It was easy to reverse engineer where Trump got his number of 39% tariff collected by the EU when the real number is less than 3%. Spoiler: Trump's 39% number wasn't for tariffs but for something else, and yet Trump labeled the false number as "tariffs."
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The people you're quoting are all known liars who have everything to lose, and listening to them is how our country has fallen so far in the first place. And people like Paul Krugman have been telling everyone the economy is doing fine while the country was burning down all around us. Your last joke of a President added 1/4 of our current $37 Trillion debt in only 4 years, and there was midget Krugman, kneeling on a milk crate with Sleepy Joe*'s baby dick in his mouth the whole time he did it.
You have no credibility and your opinion holds no currency.
You refuse to adapt to the new normal, so we're leaving you in the rear-view mirror.
I'd love to say it was nice knowing you, buddy. But it really wasn't.
How has the Trump administration arrived at these numbers?
In fact, there's a simple formula to Trump's giant cardboard table.
The first column — the tariff rate imposed by the US' partners — seems to have been calculated by taking Washington's trade deficit with that partner and dividing it by its exports to the US.
The second column — the Trump administration's so-called reciprocal rate — is around half of that rate.
In the EU's case, taking 2024 figures provided by the European Commission, that would mean a trade deficit of €198.2 billion, divided by the EU's total exports to the US of €531.6 billion, resulting in a tariff rate of 37.2% - close to the 39% defined by Trump.
The New York Times carried out the same exercise using figures defined by the US Trade Representative and found the result lands exactly on the 39% mark.
Andrew Kenningham told Euronews this "odd" formula, which is solely based on the US' trade deficit with its partners, is "a completely new departure" that has taken "everybody by surprise."
"It's not at all a measure of tariff level or of any of the other things which we were told might be taken into account in the reciprocal tariffs," Kenningham added.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/03/fact-check-are-donald-tr
umps-tariffs-on-the-eu-really-reciprocal
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I read the full article, and it sounds to me like they agree with Trump, extremely reluctantly.
They've answered for you where the 39% came from, so you can stop asking the question now.
Whether or not you agree with Trump or side with the so-called "experts" that have been leading us off a cliff for 50 years is irrelevant.
Paul Krugman's opinion means nothing today. What do you think that says about yours?
Side Note: Two prominent "experts" cited in this article called Trump's math "Odd", so I fully predict this to become the next word that we can make a highlight reel of every Lefty talking head saying over the next week or two.
Isn't that "Weird"? 
Put that in the predictions thread, Jaynez
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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As for this bit right here...
Quote:
Andrew Kenningham told Euronews this "odd" formula, which is solely based on the US' trade deficit with its partners, is "a completely new departure" that has taken "everybody by surprise."
"It's not at all a measure of tariff level or of any of the other things which we were told might be taken into account in the reciprocal tariffs," Kenningham added.
Where's your imagination, nerd?
Turning this sinking ship is going to require a completely new departure that takes everyone by surprise.
We're unfucking ourselves.
And we've been fucked 6 ways to Sunday. Why limit our Tariff war to just their Tariff's against us when there's just as many loopholes to how they fuck us as there are for rich people in America to avoid paying income taxes?
We hold all the cards.
It's not our problem if foreign countries over-extended themselves after getting used to our chronic and ever-worsening overspending problem propping them up well past the point they started taking that for granted as if that were going to continue on forever.
Of course foreign leaders are mad.
Because they can't fucking do anything about it but come to the bargaining table and lose something.
If Trump were really out of his mind they'd all be lining up to laugh at and mock him.
That is the exact opposite of what they are doing.
Aside from China so far, it doesn't look like anybody is interested in retaliating with a trade war and they're interested in giving something away in turn for not being shut out of any meaningful international trade.
And every day that passes where Trump doesn't destroy the US economy the media and the Democrats feel that noose they put around their own necks getting just a little tighter.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Mr. Musk’s grandfather was a flamboyant leader of the political movement known as technocracy. Leading technocrats proposed replacing elected officials with an army of scientists and engineers under what they called a technate. Some wanted to annex Canada and Mexico. Under the technate, humans would no longer have names; they would have numbers. One technocrat went by 1x1809x56. (Mr. Musk has a son named X Æ A-12.) Musk's grandfather, who had lost his Saskatchewan farm during the Depression, became the movement’s leader in Canada. He was technocrat No. 10450-1.
The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk
Posted on Sunday, Apr 6, 2025 9:21AM
https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/04/the-failed-ideas-that-dr
ive-elon-musk.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump Is Losing in a Landslide in Canada
The president’s trade war and threats of annexation have united Canadians as never before
By Guy Lawson | April 6, 2025
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-canada-e
lection-losing-landslide-musk-1235311449/
After a decade under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada was ready to move on from his center-left Liberal Party. It seemed inevitable that my homeland was about to elect a new conservative government and perhaps redefine the idea of what it means to be Canadian — an identity that mostly starts with the premise of not being American.
If Trump had said nothing about Canada — if he hadn’t bullied, belittled, and threatened to annex the country — the Conservative Party would have won a massive majority. If Trump and the chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk hadn’t engaged in adolescent taunting of Canadians, for no apparent reason other than frat bro hazing of what they imagined to be a defenseless target, the relationship between the two countries might have been mutually reimagined.
Instead, incredibly, unbelievably — but also inevitably, as any sane Canadian would have told you — Trump’s bully boy behavior resulted in virtually universal revulsion. The trash-talking, Trump-like leader of the Conservative Party best resembled Wile E. Coyote after Trump’s assault; the politico who had long claimed Canada is broken was suddenly lost for words as the bottom fell out of his campaign. In a matter of days, there was a 25-point swing in favor of the governing Liberal Party, now led by a no-nonsense plutocrat banker named Mark Carney. No marketing genius could have come up with a way to unite Canadians more rapidly than Trump’s threats and tariffs, affronts by a supposed marketing savant who is turning America into a globally toxic brand.
Walking the streets of Toronto on a rainy, cold early spring day, under a billboard forecasting “Chances of Canadian Weather: 100 percent,” the most remarkable thing about the city is how unremarkable it is. The frantic chaos of Trump’s America unceasing news cycle is countered with civic calm here. A pro-Palestinian protest marches along University Avenue toward City Hall, with no terror of students being disappeared by government agents wearing masks. The hip-hop exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario proceeds with no fear that the tender feelings of sensitive white men will be bruised by divergent historical and political narratives; a blonde bride poses with her groom on the circular stairs in the main atrium, oblivious to how threatened she is supposed to feel by the large poster on the wall with a set of oversized teeth and braces spelling out “Black Power.”
“NO WAY CANADA can win a trade war with America,” Vice President J.D. Vance declares on television, as he visits an American military base in Greenland — yet another society menaced by the Trump administration.
But here’s the thing: There is no war in Canada. Canada is not at war with America, nor is it at war with reality or empathy or the basic elements of human decency that also define Canadian identity. DEI — or Donald, Eric, and Ivanka as it has been called on Canadian television — is part of the political debate in Canada, of course, but the underlying sentiments of the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement are still the character traits taught in Canadian kindergartens: do your best, tell the truth, respect others, don’t be a bully, the rules matter — along with the lyrics of O Canada.
The most elemental disagreement between Canada and America seems to be about the modern world. For years, conservative America has been engaged in an angry argument with history, with originalists on the Supreme Court selectively retelling the past to serve their ideological interests. For an old man like Donald Trump, instead of yelling at the television and changing the channels with his remote, he now possesses the power to end life on earth and thus the world cringes in fear as his discontent with the present and longing for the past turn the wo
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Apr 06, 2025 at 9:24 PM EDT
President Donald Trump has denied that he intended to crash the stock market after he previously posted a video on Truth Social about him crashing the market on purpose.
The president has insisted that markets will "boom" as a result of his trade war.
Meanwhile, trading futures for the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq continue to trend further down ahead of the market's opening on Monday morning.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-addresses-crashed-markets-purpos
e-tariffs-2056075
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I hear a lot of screaming out of you, but nothing much else going on in reality.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:There was a huge explosion at Mont Belvieu, Texas underground storage facility in 1985 that destroyed a control room, etc. I worked more than a year on the engineering so that there would never be another. And there hasn't. I made a truckload of money doing the work, which means the explosion was not a tragedy for me, even though people died.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I hear a lot of screaming out of you, but nothing much else going on in reality.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Trump is causing one explosion after another, all across the USA and in foreign countries, every week. I'm going to make significant money from the disasters caused by Trump's foolish lowering of my taxes and his crashing prices of stocks, which I will buy cheaply.
Like the 1985 explosion in Mont Belvieu, the 2025 explosions caused by Trump will be fatal tragedies, but not for me. Trump is making opportunities for wealthy people.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:"What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now and have just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly?"
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I hear a lot of screaming out of you, but nothing much else going on in reality.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated, "I think that's a false narrative. Americans who want to retire right now, Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what's happening." He further explained that "most Americans in a 401K have what's called a 60/40 account... [which is] down 5 or 6 percent on the year. People have a long-term view... If you look day-to-day, week-to-week, it's very risky. Over the long term, it's a good investment."
Market Plummets After Trump’s New Tariff Announcement
His remarks came just days after the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered consecutive drops totaling over 2,200 points, following Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs — including a 10 percent universal rate on all imports and much steeper ones for certain countries.
Critics Compare Bessent to 'Marie Antoinette' in Viral Reaction
"There's something very Marie Antoinette about maybe the wealthiest Treasury Secretary ever saying no one is worried about their 401ks that Trump just crashed."
"Every time Scott Bessent tries to downplay the damage Trump's policies are doing to everyday Americans, just remember: he's worth over half a billion dollars and lived in a $22 million mansion he called the Pink Palace."
Bessent “has a firmly established public record identifying himself as the stupidest Treasury Secretary in history.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Political Styles of the Rich and Clueless
There are none so blind as those that will not see
By Paul Krugman | Apr 07, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/political-styles-of-the-rich-and
As we wait to see what fresh hell awaits us this week, one obvious question is, who put these malevolent clowns in power?
The short answer is ignorant people. But political ignorance takes two different forms.
On one side there are “less-engaged” voters who don’t follow politics closely. And to be fair, ordinary Americans have good excuses for not paying close attention to the news: They have jobs to do, children to raise, lives to live. Unfortunately, many of these voters believed Trump’s fabulist promises. They are only now beginning to understand what they voted for.
There’s now a huge debate among Democrats about how to reach less-engaged voters. But that’s a topic for future posts.
But less-engaged voters weren’t the only people who missed the warning signs and supported Donald Trump. Trump also had a number of ultra-wealthy backers, both on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, who are now shocked, shocked to discover that he is who he always was.
Over the weekend Bill Ackman, a hedge-fund billionaire who has been one of Trump’s most vocal supporters, suddenly turned on his champion, declaring on X that
by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.
But Ackman refused to take any responsibility for enabling the destruction:
I don't think this was foreseeable. I assumed economic rationality would be paramount. My bad.
Indeed. Who could have foreseen that the self-proclaimed Tariff Man, who posts crazy stuff on Truth Social every day, would impose destructive tariffs? Who could have imagined that the many economists, myself included, who warned that a Trump victory would be very bad for the economy would turn out to have been right? Or if we were wrong, it was only because we underestimated the damage.
OK, Ackman is a fool, but he wasn’t alone in getting Trump all wrong. Many wealthy people imagined that Trump II would be like Trump I, mostly a standard right-winger with a bit of a protectionist hobby. They thought he would cut their taxes, eliminate financial and environmental regulations and promote crypto, making them even wealthier. They expected him to back off his tariff obsession if the stock market started to fall. If he ripped up the social safety net, well, they don’t depend on food stamps or Medicaid.
And if Trump II really had been like Trump I, America’s oligarchs would be very happy right now.
It's also true that successful businessmen often believe that their financial success makes them experts on economic policy even though they haven’t made any effort to understand the issues.
Even relatively sensible business leaders like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase tend to stumble when they try to play economist. Does anyone remember Dimon proclaiming in 2014 that we couldn’t restore full employment because American workers didn’t have the right skills? Five years later the unemployment rate was below 4 percent.
I was struck over the weekend when Elon Musk (I know, I know), seemingly breaking with Trump, called for zero tariffs between the United States and Europe. I think it’s safe to assume that Musk has no idea that trans-Atlantic tariffs were, in fact, close to zero in 2024: The average European Union tariff on U.S. goods was 1.7%, the average U.S. tariff on EU goods was 1.4%.
Finally, great wealth often enables great pettiness. Some readers may remember Wall Street’s “Obama rage”: Financial titans were furious at the president who bailed them out after the global financial crisis because he dared to hint that they had played some role in causing that crisis. Why, he even called them “fat cats!”
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