President Nothing-Burger

 

“I can end the war in 24 hours,” candidate 47 boasted. He ran his mouth about a lot of other things as well. Promising a recession if we dared to elect the Democrats, he was the only one who could fix the economy and a lot of bile  about immigrants, especially those who were black and brown, were all ran into the ground in his so-called rallies. Thus far, this has been a presidency of fluff (and make no mistake a lot of real harm). There are three lessons the President could learn but he refuses to do so  because they clash with his fragile ego. The President cannot run the country via executive orders. Other people around the world really don't give a shit about the United States. The natural world crushes the profit motive. Let's take a closer look.

Having an AI poorly write far right executive orders that clearly deify the Constitution is proving to be a non-winning strategy. Thus far, around 90% of them have been struck down by the courts. 47 knows he can't get these insane changes to our laws through Congress. So he tries to sneak them in via executive order. No more Birthright citizenship? It may sound great to non-thinking red meat loving right wingers. The practical effect is creating another stateless population with no rights and no place to go. That's a no win for anyone and why it too was shot down in court. It turns out America first is becoming America alone.

Rather than strengthen our economy, 47’s unprovoked trade wars  only hurt US consumers and businesses.The days of the factory powered economy are long gone and will not come back. Yes, the offshoring of these jobs accelerated change. We cannot forget most of these jobs are now replaced by automation. Nor can we forget, any of these factories have been closed for decades and would take a lot of time, capital and work to reopen. We cannot just walk in, throw on the lights and restart the machines. If we really want to get into the business of manufacturing goods like we used to, that will take a lot of planning and time. It's not magic. The magical idea we are not causing climate change is worse than wishful thinking, it is downright harmful.

47, and his rich buddies in the fossil fuel industry are allowing their wallets to dictate what they will and will not believe. Climate change does not care about belief. It is no longer some theory about what may or may not happen in the future. Climate change is here now in the form of stronger storms, more extreme temperatures and catastrophic fires. Shifting regions for  growing crops, areas becoming too hot to live and a changing hydrocycle will spark more and more conflicts and destabilize the world as we know it. No, the world will not bend to an aging man who's losing his mind more and more each day.

Instead of solutions, we get hot air and complaints of his personal victimhood. In short, we have a Nothing Burger in the White House whose only intention is to tear down what others have built. I don't think being a tool of the super wealthy or defender of despots and pedophiles will lead to any long-term success. The real question is how can the rest of us mitigate the damage?

The Slow and Inevitable Collapse of Trump World

 

Can you feel it? This Administration is falling apart. All they have left are mostly hollow threats, empty bluster and never ending victimhood whining. A strong leader could care less about what comedians or cartoon shows say about them. Hopefully, they have more important things to deal with but not this crew! “Take that off the air or I'll sue!” Nobody can  make fun of me! This Administration is devoid of Any leadership skills whatsoever. The walls are closing inevitably and relentlessly. I'm not sure what this will look like going forward. But I can assure you it won't be pretty. Let's examine tariff chicken and TACO Trump, the ongoing ICE fiasco and possibly the final nail in the MAGA coffin, the Epstein saga.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an economist to understand tariffs are bad for the economy. What makes it even worse is the on again and off again nature based apparently on the president's mood. In order to thrive business needs stability. They need to know the rules will not suddenly change based on an autocrat’s mood. If you know even the slightest about business, you understand they pass expenses on to customers. They are simply not going to take losses out of a sense of patriotism. And I call bullshit but all of these so-called “trade deals.” Real trade deals between something as large and complicated as two nation states take months or even years to hammer out. Trade agreements are much more than social media posts. Several hundred changes in a few months only inject instability into the system. Sooner or later the bill will come due. Ripping people off the street by goons wearing masks without due process is much more than just a bad look.

What's going to happen when the people who work our farms stop showing up? The best case may be price spikes along with some going hungry. With the people who do our building afraid to show up to work (along with tariffs on materials) will pretty much kill construction efforts.  I never thought I would see the day in the United States where police wear masks and send people off to literal concentration camps. Please understand what can happen to our most vulnerable, can happen to any of us. Also be assured they will not stop with illegal black and brown people. Authoritarians must always have enemies! Where are you on their list? Where are your family and friends on that list? Consider it carefully and here's one more thing.

The Epstein nightmare is an albatross that will hang around Trump's neck until he is in the grave. No amount of Obama bashing or digging up dirt on Hillary will make this go away. Jingling shiny keys will no longer work. Sooner or later there will be investigations and much of the truth will come out. Sadly, I don't think this means justice for the victims. Our imperfect system simply will not allow for any Elite to face consequences. This scandal will further shred the Republican Party and maybe even the Democrats before it's over. There's no amount of distraction or whining that can make this story "go away."

 Trump says a lot of things. That's a far cry from what actually happens. So called “executive orders” get shot down on the courts. “Trade Agreements” are in actuality nothing more than a social media post. Lawsuit after lawsuit gets dismissed. Given Trump's obvious and rapid mental decline, things will only get worse. I have a bad feeling the infighting and power struggles within the White House are off the charts! So much for consistency and stability.

Jobs going, going almost gone

The jobs are going, going and almost gone... All of those who think training is the answer are on the right track for the long term. In the short term, where are the jobs people being trained for today going to come from? Everyone cannot be a pharmacist, nurse or class A truck driver. Bio tech and high tech jobs are good but number in the hundreds here in North Carolina. According to this article, we will lose 96,000 jobs by the end of this year! Unfortunately, our state lags behind most of the country in education. So who will want to come here? We offer cheap unskilled labor but NOT near as cheap as China and places beyond! When the unemployment extension run their course and the money for more "retraining" has run out, what will be the next step? The good news is things have to change. We will have redo health care, we will have to adjust our current plan of borrow against tomorrow for what we want today and take education more seriously from day one. With the 12Th worst dropout rate in the country, we have a lot of work to do. Now we have to retrain a largely uneducated workforce for jobs we hope will come. Given time to innovate our way out of the current mess, it may work. We can all think about what success will look like, low unemployment and all boats rising but what about failure? This Russian guy has an idea...