Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
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Trump Needs Someone to Blame
The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, is that someone.
By David Frum | April 17, 2025, 11:15 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-federal-reserv
e-jerome-powell/682489/
Trump’s all-purpose remedy for economic trouble is cheaper money. When Trump’s first-term trade war crashed the stock market in the fall of 2018, Trump demanded interest-rate cuts to rescue him from his own mistake. In a November 2018 interview with The Washington Post, Trump complained:
Quote:The numbers and the syntax in that quote are gibberish, but the emotion is real. Just in case anybody missed the point, Trump made it personal, saying he was “not even a little bit happy” with his selection of Powell for Fed chairman.
I am not at all happy with the Fed. I am not at all happy with my choice. I think we have to let it go. You know, if you look at—China is being accommodative. The euro and Europe is being accommodative. We’re not getting any accommodation, and we’re also paying $50 billion, we’re paying down our liquidity, is—you can make the case it’s a positive thing in one way, but another thing, it snaps your liquidity. So I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed. I’m not happy with the Fed. They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.
As a businessman, Trump spent a lot of his career profoundly in debt. His bankers often bailed him out, and he seems to believe that the Federal Reserve should do the same for his presidency.
But the Fed has a mandate to preserve price stability. Trump’s trade war threatens enormous price increases for American businesses and consumers. The trade war is also scaring investors into dumping dollar-denominated assets. U.S. bond prices are falling, and the value of the dollar itself is tumbling. Trump has thrust the Fed into a terrible dilemma, one last encountered during the stagflation that occurred in the 1970s. The Federal Reserve can control only short-term rates; a short-term cut during a period of inflation will frighten investors into expecting even higher inflation in the future, and drive up long-term rates. The Fed can change the price of overnight lending, but the markets decide the price of 30-year mortgages. And if the Fed presses down too hard on the lever it does control, that will force an upward surge by the lever it does not control.
The rescue that the economy needs is a change not in monetary policy but in Trump’s economic aggression against trading partners. End the tariffs, let trade recover, and then the Fed can do its convalescent work. But intelligent policy begins by admitting that Trump’s policy was stupid—and Trump will not soon admit that. So Powell must be fingered as the fall guy instead.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Why You Should Fear a Trumpified Fed
Don’t give an abuser power that’s easy to abuse
By Paul Krugman | Apr 18, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-you-should-fear-a-trumpified
Sometimes the Federal Reserve has extraordinary power over the economy.
Consider what happened from 1982 to 1984. For most of 1982 the U.S. economy was in grim shape. Employment had plunged, especially in manufacturing. The unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in December (it was 4.2 percent last month.) And economic pain helped Democrats make major gains in the 1982 midterms.
But everything was about to change, thanks to the Fed. In the summer of 1982 the Fed decided to ease monetary policy. Interest rates plunged, and about 6 months later the economy began a stunning rebound, growing 4.6 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984. Ronald Reagan claimed credit for “Morning in America,” but actually it was the Fed that did it.
This episode illustrates the Fed’s power — power that must be insulated from abuse by politicians, especially politicians like Donald Trump.
Over the past few days Trump has been demanding that the Fed cut interest rates and calling for the Fed chairman’s “termination.” It’s worth looking at what he posted on Truth Social to get a sense of how, to use the technical term, batshit crazy he is on this subject:
Quote:And we really, really don’t want someone that crazy dictating monetary policy.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, "Too Late" Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete "mess!" Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!
8.96k ReTruths 38.2k Likes
Apr 17, 2025,12:12 PM
The reason we don’t want politicians in direct control of monetary policy is that it’s so easy to use. After all, what does it mean to “ease” monetary policy? It’s an incredibly frictionless process. Normally the Federal Open Market Committee tells the New York Fed to buy U.S. government debt from private banks, which it does with money conjured out of thin air. There’s no need to pass legislation, place bids with contractors, deal with any of the hassles usually associated with changes in government policy. Basically the Fed can create an economic boom with a phone call.
It's obvious that this kind of power could be abused by an irresponsible leader who wants to preside over an economic boom and doesn’t want to hear about the risks. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Consider what happened in Turkey, whose Trump-like president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently arrested the leader of the opposition. When the global post-Covid inflation shock hit, Erdogan embraced crank economic theories. He forced Turkey’s central bank, its equivalent of the Fed, to cut interest rates in the belief, contrary to standard economics, that doing so would reduce, not increase inflation. You can see the results in the chart:
How can we guard against that kind of policy irresponsibility? After the stagflation of the 1970s many countries delegated monetary policy to technocrats at independent central banks. Can the technocrats get it wrong? Of course they can and often have. But they’re less likely to engage in wishful thinking and motivated reasoning than typical politicians, let alone politicians like Trump.
What makes Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed especially ominous is the fact that the Fed will soon have to cope with the stagflationary crisis Trump has created. Trump’s massive tariff increase will lead to a major inflationary shock:
http
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18 more TDS posts out of you today, huh?
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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A sizable group of Americans agrees with the phrase ‘I think society should be burned to the ground.’
https://theconversation.com/a-need-for-chaos-powers-some-americans-sup
port-for-elon-musk-taking-a-chainsaw-to-the-us-government-253420
April 15, 2025 8:30am EDT
. . . in our data, those higher in need for chaos report holding more trust in Musk, DOGE and Trump than people who score lower in the need for chaos measure.
Who wants to burn it down?
We are political psychologists who study the link between psychological traits and political beliefs. Last month, the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication ran a national survey that we designed to understand where the public stands on various political issues and how those beliefs relate to psychological traits, including need for chaos.
In our national study of 1,600 Americans conducted between Feb. 27-March 5, 2025, by YouGov, we asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:
• “I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over”
• “I think society should be burned to the ground”
• “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions; we need to tear them down and start over”
• “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on”
Similar to prior work by author Kevin Arceneaux and his colleagues, our data shows that fewer than 20% of the sample agree strongly or agree somewhat with each item.
However, looking at the need for chaos among groups of varying ages, education levels and media habits, we find the highest need for chaos scores among people under age 40, those with less education, and those who pay the least attention to politics.
Burning it down through government policy
Our new data also shows that while people highest in need for chaos report having more trust in Musk, DOGE, and President Trump, these chaos-seeking folks report having less trust in “people in general,” journalists or the federal government. These findings hold even when statistically accounting for other factors, among them party, race, gender, education and ideology.
Musk’s penchant for wielding chainsaws as a symbol of DOGE’s work provides some insight into why chaos seekers may like what they see in Musk.
It’s not clear exactly what Musk’s aim is with his work at DOGE, as he eliminates the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government workers.
What is clear, however, is that by many accounts, the mass firings and the gutting of agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Institute for Peace, are sowing chaos. And a significant portion of Americans want just that.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.
https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.
https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...
I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Has there ever existed a Trumptard who realized he was bad? Nope. Any Nazis who realized they were bad? Nope. Maybe Confederate slave-owners who realized they were bad? Nope. Ku Klux Klansmen who realized lynching was evil? Nope, nope, nope.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.
https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...
I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Trump supporters 'must be ostracized' for America to survive: ex-megachurch pastor
By Brad Reed | April 18, 2025 9:27AM ET
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-supporters-2671799614/
Former megachurch pastor John Pavlovitz has written a new piece on his Substack page that takes a distinctly Old Testament attitude toward supporters of President Donald Trump. https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/for-americas-survival-his-support
ers
In his piece, Pavlovitz makes the case that Trump supporters "must be ostracized" going forward due to their complicity in what he sees as the president's ruinous second-term policies.
"The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is , as those in his Cabinet are," he writes.
Pavlovitz argues that Trump supporters have had all sorts of chances to correct course over the years despite seeing the president's cruelty and his authoritarian aspirations up close.
"They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse," he contends. "Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him."
He then goes on to advise his followers to simply cut any Trump-supporting friends or relatives out of their lives.
"If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs," he writes. "They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us."
Pavlovitz does make an exception for Trump supporters who have "come to their senses" and he advises treating them with a spirit of forgiveness and charity.
"But as far as his cheerleaders, champions, kindred spirits, sycophants, and disciples—they are proving themselves unreachable with reason, impervious to compassion, and mortally allergic to anything that reasonable human beings value," he adds.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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For America's Survival, His Supporters Must Be Ostracized
By John Pavlovitz | Apr 17, 2025
https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/for-americas-survival-his-support
ers
His absolute disregard for the Constitution, throwing our nation into perpetual chaos;
his rejection of the rule of Law, stripping elemental rights from tens of millions of Americans;
his unthinkable, unspeakable treatment of human beings rounded up like animals and jailed without probable cause; his capricious and violent crusade against federal workers, universities, law firms, public school teachers, medical professionals, and journalists.
The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is, as those in his Cabinet are.
The war crimes in Gaza and Ukraine.
The medical relief, ripped from the poorest of the world.
The scalding panic felt by immigrants, both documented and undocumented.
They are culpable for all of it.
The literal and figurative blood is on their hands.
They may as well be smashing the car windows of a migrant family waiting for their lawyer to ensure due process, joyously ripping the lunches from children living in poverty, unceremoniously terminating federal employees after decades of faithful service, terrorizing transgender students in their school hallways, accosting pregnant women in emergency rooms.
They could have so easily stopped this.
They could have allowed their humanity to come to bear back in the fall, when it was clear that he was cognitively shattered, that his singular goal was a fascist dictatorship, that his agenda would consist solely of retribution against those who sought legal and moral accountability for him.
Instead, our childhood friends, our favorite uncles, and our next-door neighbors ignored revered journalists, Constitutional scholars, renowned economists, and past presidents.
They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse. Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him.
And now, they either fully endorse this most vicious and vile season in our nation’s history, or enable it by their cowardice and silence.
And as a result, this senseless waste of life, this asinine global trade war, this stupid squandering of prosperity, this sociopathic predation against citizens and immigrants—they are collaborators on all of it.
And in light of this, they do not deserve proximity with those of us who are hourly pushing back against the criminality, exposing the atrocities, caring for those under duress. They are nothing but barriers to healing and obstacles to justice.
I’m not sure America can even survive the damage we’ve sustained in such a short time. Despite our best efforts, it may not be possible (at least in our lifetimes) to stop the bleeding, reverse course, and repair all that has been damaged since January 20th.
But if any of this is going to happen: if we are going to salvage our Republic from this massive wrecking ball of cruelty, it is going to be necessary for the good people of this nation to sever ties with those still loyal to him. We need to withhold our friendship, exclude them from our holiday gatherings, cut personal and professional ties, and practically speaking, marginalize them.
If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs. They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us.
I’m not speaking about those who have or will come to their senses; those with the humility and empathy to admit their errors; those who will be visible and vocal in their resistance to th
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Has there ever existed a Trumptard who realized he was bad?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.
https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...
I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
You are brain damaged.
There is something seriously wrong with you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Blah blah blah...
I have never seen a megachurch pastor think he was bad. And SECOND doesn't think he's evil either. But he is.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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