Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too? by 6ixStringJack

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Trump needs to stop running around like a man with his hair in fire, and start making intermediate and long term plans. And that includes doing well enuf to get Vance in the WH. Bc, TBH, I think Vance is more logical and systematic. Plus, he needs to get better advisors.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well.

Trumpis doing some things right, especially about illegal aliens.

I wish he had the same laser focus on the other things he's trying to accomplish, but he's making hash of his opportunities.

He seems to think he has to ... and can ... solve everything in 100 days. He acts like he has way more leverage than he does. And promising every day that "a deal" is just around the corner .... how stupid does he think we are?

Ukraine.
There's a long bad history of the west screwing with Russia: breaking promises, creating a color revolution, blowing up pipelines, torpedoing negotiations, waging covert war etc. Many reasons for Russia not to trust us. And Trump is in a no-win situation, because NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES, RUSSIA IS GOING TO WIN. So Trump isn't gonna get a cease fire in 1000 days, no matter how much he blusters and bullies. What Trump should do is just stop supporting Ukraine. Right now.

Ending globalization and tariffs.
I think tariffs are an essential part of remaking our economy. But not the ONLY part, and - again- it's not gonna happen in six months, or a year, or even two years. I think Russia did an EXEMPLARY job rebuilding its economy, from being a basket-case kleptocracy in 2000 to being a resilient nearly self-sufficient economy able to withstand everything the west could throw at it - militarily, economically, and financially, in 2022. BUT IT TOOK 22 YEARS TO GET THERE.
China has spent every year since 2008 trying to unhitch itself from the USA market... 15 YEARS. Can it survive an all-out trade war with the USA? I don't know. But CHINA IS A LOT MORE PREPARED THAN WE ARE.
So. Igniting a full-on trade war with China?.
Counterproductive.
Oh BTW... I dont give a fuck what happens to the stock market. Its been one big speculative bubble that the Fed refuses to let pop for over 20 years.

Saving money
The one thing that DOGE uncovered is that nobody really follows any sort of accounting practices. YOU CAN'T SAVE MONEY UNTIL YOU KNOW WHO IS BEING PAID, AND FOR WHAT. So until accounting practices have been followed for at least six months, it's hard to determine what to cut. Also ... a TRILLION DOLLAR DEFENSE BUDGET?

'If Trump breaks the economy he owns it... but if he fixes it, he owns that too' Problem is, NOBODY can fix an economy in two years.

If Trump breaks the economy, he'll lose Congress in two years. Fuck up bad enough, and Vance will lose the WH, and there will go our best chance at a rational national economic strategy. It's not just about Trump.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 1:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Trump needs to stop running around like a man with his hair in fire, and start making intermediate and long term plans. And that includes doing well enuf to get Vance in the WH. Bc, TBH, I think Vance is more logical and systematic. Plus, he needs to get better advisors.

Keep in mind that it is only April 11th. We're not even 100 days in yet, even though Democrats can't stop talking about the 2026 midterms they're going to lose every day.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 2:10 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Peevish Trumptards Take Revenge!

Pentagon fires Greenland base commander for refuting JD Vance’s remarks

A Pentagon spokesperson suggested that Col. Susannah Meyers “undermined” Vance when she praised the unity of the base’s multinational staff in an email.

By Clarissa-Jan Lim | April 11, 2025, 11:36 AM CDT

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/greenland-base-commander-fire
d-jd-vance-rcna200820

The Pentagon has fired the commander of its base in Pituffik, Greenland, after she refuted remarks that Vice President JD Vance made during his contentious visit to the semi-autonomous Danish territory last month.

On March 31, three days after Vance’s visit, Col. Susannah Meyers wrote an email to the multinational staff at the Pittufik Space Base in which she struck a far more unified tone than the vice president did in his speech.

“I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base,” Meyers wrote in her email, which was first reported by Military.com.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/04/10/space-force-commander-g
reenland-sent-out-email-breaking-vance-after-his-visit.html

“I commit that for as long as I am lucky enough to lead this base, all of our flags will fly proudly — together,” she added. (Under a 1951 defense agreement with Denmark, when the installation was known as Thule Air Base, the flags of the United States, Greenland and Denmark are required to be flown on the base.)

During his hourslong trip to the Arctic island, Vance accused Denmark of failing the people of Greenland and said they would be safer under U.S. rule. Vance and second lady Usha Vance had a frosty reception from the territory’s residents, who have largely made it clear that they do not want to be a part of the United States.

On Thursday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted a statement on X announcing that Meyers had been let go “for loss of confidence in her ability to lead.” His statement suggested that Meyers had behaved in a partisan manner, despite the fact that her email explicitly dismissed politics.

“Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense,” Parnell wrote in his post, which linked to the article on Military.com.

Meyers is not the first to be punished for displaying less than total fealty to Team Trump. The White House has also purged the Justice Department of career lawyers and replaced them with loyalists. Just last week, a DOJ prosecutor was suspended from his post — two weeks after his promotion — for telling a federal judge that the government had deported a Maryland man to El Salvador by mistake.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 2:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Peevish Trumptards Take Revenge!

Nobody wants to hear it when you retards are out destroying everyone's cars and having other destructive temper tantrums.

We should just send you all to Cecot.

You love illegal criminals so much I'm sure they'd welcome you with open arms.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:19 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Trump needs to stop running around like a man with his hair in fire, and start making intermediate and long term plans. And that includes doing well enuf to get Vance in the WH. Bc, TBH, I think Vance is more logical and systematic. Plus, he needs to get better advisors.

Keep in mind that it is only April 11th. We're not even 100 days in yet, even though Democrats can't stop talking about the 2026 midterms they're going to lose every day.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

SIX, think before posting.

There are SOME things ... purely political ... that can be solved with a Trump decision or a negotiated settlement. For example, allow Biden's "draw down" weaponry to flow into Ukraine but commit to not providing any more money or ISR, starting right now.

Restore diplomatic relations with Russia, give back the diplomatic property that Obama stole, and start negotiating an intermediate range missile treaty with Russia.

But Iran??
WTF??
Trump, when you're trying to put out fires, STOP SETTING MORE.
"Maximum pressure" tactics won't against Russia, China, OR IRAN.

Quote:
Energy Secretary Hints At Military Action Against Iran's Global Oil Exports
Friday, Apr 11, 2025 - 05:45 AM

Amid Trump's anti-Iran 'maximum pressure' and the current climate of the White House telling Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear deal or else bombs could fly, fresh statements from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright just added fuel to the fire.

Jeezus, no shit.

Trump thinks he can push nations around like in New York real estate deals. It doesn't work that way. Iran says it doesn't want a nuclear weapon, and Trump and Putin say the same thing. So.... what's the problem???? The only thing to negotiate is how to verify, which is a technical issue. So, once that's dine, release sanctions on Iran and lower oil and gas prices. Everyone will be happy (except SECOND).

BUT THE ECONOMY IS DIFFERENT.

Fixing an economy is a 15 year (or more) effort.

CHINA is not our problem, our financial globalists are our problem who thought the USA could guve up production and reign as the supreme financial power. Dtarting with NAFTA (giant sucking sound"), accepting China into the WTO, and ALMOST signing the TTP/TTIP. If Trump wants to reverse this he's going to have to go head to head against a very powerful set of oligarchs.
So, what's with the military action?

And then there's Trump going around the world, shaking down every nation or land area he can find (Gaza, Panama, Greenland/Denmark, Canada, Taiwan, and every nation that he can tariff) looking like so much as a man frantically digging thru couch cushions looking for a quarter.

I'm all for what Trump is trying to do, but how about .... improving the economy sector by sector, replacing an entire supply chain to ... make automobiles, for example?

AND OUR BUDGET DEFICIT IS AN INTERMEDIATE-RANGE PROBLEM.
It can start heading in the right direction, but won't be eliminated for at least 5 years. And first, the WH needs to know who is getting $$, and for what. Aside from just stopping money waste, entire programs need to be re-evaluated, and it needs to be considered whether ending a program would ultimately cost more $$ than it would save.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:22 PM

If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:47 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

6ix, you are out of your fucking little mind with your talk of Democrats Destroying America. Trumptards have done more harm to America just by their over-eating, smoking, drunkenness, tax-cheating, shirking-of-work, incompetence-at-work, spending-rather-than-saving, and abandoning their families than all Democratic politicians have done by being in office. Trumptards are fucking dirtbags and that harms the nation and themselves.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:49 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump’s favorite trick is blowing up in his face

He thinks chaotic behavior gets him better deals. Instead it’s gravely harming the US economy.

By Andrew Prokop | Apr 11, 2025, 1:00 PM CDT

https://www.vox.com/politics/408319/trump-tariffs-madman-theory-bonds-
treasury-yields

For many years, Donald Trump has viewed unpredictability as one of his greatest negotiating assets.

He believes deliberately acting “crazy,” as he reportedly told aides in 2017, is a highly effective way to win concessions in advance of a deal. As I’ve written, this is akin to what President Richard Nixon dubbed the “madman theory” — that if he convinced foreign leaders he was willing to do unthinkable things, they’d back down out of fear.

The problem was that savvy observers like investors and foreign leaders caught on to this game. So during Trump’s first term, conventional wisdom set in: Trump may say scary things, but he’s typically bluffing. In the end, he is rational, knows when to step back from the brink, and does not want a truly destructive outcome. Often, there was seemingly good reason to believe this: The pre-pandemic economy remained strong, Trump avoided major new wars, and he didn’t pull out of NATO.

Now, in his second term, Trump has decided to blow up that assumption by imposing chaotic, impulsive, and bizarre tariffs that shake the global economy. He’s not just threatening anymore: He’s actually implementing his destructive and dangerous ideas. (At least for a little while — he did back off some of them on Wednesday amid market turmoil, though others remain.)

It is entirely possible — likely, in my view — that Trump’s hoped-for endgame for his trade war remains a series of “big, beautiful deals,” with details flexible and to be determined and, that in his own mind, all he’s doing is trying to increase his leverage. That is: He’s still trying to implement madman theory.

Even regarding China, where the trade war is most intense, it could well be that Trump will settle for something far short of the massive disruption that truly decoupling our economy from theirs would entail — that the endgame is a deal.

But even if all this is true and Trump’s end goals are not as unreasonable as his current behavior reflects, he’s still doing grave and potentially long-lasting damage to the United States and its reputation and position in the global economy.

Trump is shredding the US’s economic and business reputation

It turns out that trying the madman schtick, not just with individual foreign leaders but with the entire global economy all at once, is far riskier. And it turns out that by actually following through on his threats and putting giant tariffs into effect, Trump crossed an important line. He exploded investors’ conventional wisdom that he would, in the end, back down. So they’re responding — by ditching US bonds and currency.

Now, Trump’s team did anticipate that the trade war might drive the dollar down — some of them even wanted that because it would help make US exports more competitive. They did not, however, anticipate the ominous spikes in US Treasury bond yields. In fact, Trump advisers had previously said they were trying to drive bond yields lower.

US Treasury bonds are typically viewed as an extremely safe asset — they mature with interest after a set period. The interest rate, or “yield,” fluctuates based on market demand. Basically, when investors become more eager to put their money in US bonds, the interest rate drops. But when investors prefer to put money elsewhere, the interest rate goes up (demand for bonds is lower, so a higher interest rate is necessary to make it “worth it” for investors).

Typically, a crisis drives investors to the safe asset of Treasury bonds. But now a Trump-invented crisis is doing the opposite and driving them away. This is a major problem both because US interest payments on its debt will rise and because it heightens the risk of a financial crisis.

The reason for investors’ flight from US bonds seems obvious — a country run by a “madman” who’s willing to throw millions of business models into chaos on a whim does not seem particularly stable and reliable. The US’s global reputation was the safest place in a storm, but now, Trump is causing the storm, and investors are responding by fleeing the US.

I wrote back in January that “it’s very difficult to send a credibly intimidating madman message to foreign leaders while at the same time sending a reassuring message to markets.” And now, it’s clear that Trump’s attempt to intimidate the world is doing his own economy great harm, in a way that will be difficult to recover from unless he somehow overcomes his addiction to making unhinged tariff threats (or the Supreme Court reins him in).

Trump has grown more willing to embrace risk and chaos

I’ve written about the institutional guardrails that, in Trump’s first term, often effectively held him back from doing damaging things. But in some ways, the most important guardrail is Trump himself — his own instincts about political self-preservation and calculations about when it is time to step back from the brink.

Throughout his first term, Trump did many risky, controversial, and provocative things. But he also (often at the behest of pleading advisers) was willing to decide that this particular firing or that particular provocation would be going too far. He drew the line somewhere.

But as the term went on, he kept drawing that line closer to the edge of the cliff. Take, for instance, his unprecedented attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, which many Republicans initially assumed was cheap talk. It took his followers storming the Capitol and sending members of Congress fleeing in terror before he backed down.

Now, back in office, and surrounded by “yes men” and ideologues, Trump feels newly empowered to do what he wants — to take massive risks or do things that would have seemed unthinkable in his first term. Hence Liberation Day.

At the beginning of this week’s market turmoil, some Trump allies claimed he was totally unbothered since the economic pain was just hitting “Wall Street” and not “Main Street.” This was a ludicrous thing to say — many businesses and jobs are at risk, and American consumers’ confidence in the economy is plummeting — but some feared the Trump team was so disconnected from reality that it believed it.

Then, amidst those ominous signs in the bond markets, Trump blinked on Wednesday. This appeared to confirm that the worst-case scenario of Trump’s disconnection from reality was not, in fact, true, and investors responded with enthusiasm.

But his simultaneous escalation against China (and new tariff threats against Mexico on Thursday on an entirely separate issue) shows he’s extremely reluctant to give up the tariff weapon. So as of early Friday afternoon, the markets were still tumultuous.

What will be sufficient to spur Trump to back down again? Where is the line this week, this day, this hour? And how much pain will our economy and our country suffer before he decides enough is enough

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

HE CAN'T GET HIS "ECONOMY" AGENDA DONE IN TWO YEARS, PERIOD.
Steel mills, textile mills, chip fabs, metalworking and fabrication plants, heat treating, CNC machines, pharma production, specialty chemicals... dood, you think those are all going to appear by magic, just bc Trump wants???

EVEN IF other nations saw the error of their ways and starting investing in production facilities TOMORROW, they wouldn't be up and running in two years.

THE FISCAL PROBLEM WILL TAKE A FEW YEARS TO SOLVE. And if he's counting on a revived economy generating more revenues ... well, that'll be a long wait!

And constantly announcing that a "new deal" is just around the corner, or YUGE! waste was suddenly discovered is no substitute for RESULTS.

There are some things he can get done right away: Ukraine, Russia.
Stop setting fires with China and Iran.
Stop sending $ to Israel.
Stop trying to shake down nations for spare change (He wants NATO nations to pay us $350 billion for services rendered. Well, so do I but it's not gonna happen.)

He has to future-proof his program by building on success, not making wild promises and taking radical counterproductive actions.

10% tariffs across the board, OK. Higher tariffs on certain products (eg automobiles) OK. Virtual embargo on China-USA trade? Not OK.

Take a deep breath and focus.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 3:56 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, stop whinging about stock markets. It's a bubble that should have been popped years ago. Ditto real estate.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 4:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, you are out of your fucking little mind with your talk of Democrats Destroying America.

No. I am not.

Democrats hate America. Democrats hate Americans. Democrats are evil.

Democrats are dead.

Your party is dead.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 4:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
HE CAN'T GET HIS "ECONOMY" AGENDA DONE IN TWO YEARS, PERIOD.
Steel mills, textile mills, chip fabs, metalworking and fabrication plants, heat treating, CNC machines, pharma production, specialty chemicals... dood, you think those are all going to appear by magic, just bc Trump wants???

EVEN IF other nations saw the error of their ways and starting investing in production facilities TOMORROW, they wouldn't be up and running in two years.

THE FISCAL PROBLEM WILL TAKE A FEW YEARS TO SOLVE. And if he's counting on a revived economy generating more revenues ... well, that'll be a long wait!

And constantly announcing that a "new deal" is just around the corner, or YUGE! waste was suddenly discovered is no substitute for RESULTS.

There are some things he can get done right away: Ukraine, Russia.
Stop setting fires with China and Iran.
Stop sending $ to Israel.
Stop trying to shake down nations for spare change (He wants NATO nations to pay us $350 billion for services rendered. Well, so do I but it's not gonna happen.)

He has to future-proof his program by building on success, not making wild promises and taking radical counterproductive actions.

10% tariffs across the board, OK. Higher tariffs on certain products (eg automobiles) OK. Virtual embargo on China-USA trade? Not OK.

Take a deep breath and focus.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Like I've told Second many times before, not a single thing one of us can do about any of it now.

I'm reserving my judgements for later. We'll see what happens.

Good luck everyone.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 4:53 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Like I've told Second many times before, not a single thing one of us can do about any of it now.

You can buy ammo and shoot some Trumptards. Too aggressive and scary? Fire some Trumptards. Don't have employees? You can sell bonds. That does something. Investors are dumping U.S. government bonds.

Normally, investors rush into Treasurys at a whiff of economic chaos but now they are selling them as not even the lure of higher interest payments on the bonds is getting them to buy. The freak development has experts worried that big banks, funds and traders are losing faith in America as a good place to store their money.

“The fear is the U.S. is losing its standing as the safe haven,” said George Cipolloni, a fund manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “Our bond market is the biggest and most stable in the world, but when you add instability, bad things can happen.”

That could be bad news for consumers in need of a loan — and for President Donald Trump, who had hoped his tariff pause earlier this week would restore confidence in the markets.

https://apnews.com/article/treasurys-bond-market-yield-tariff-46b48187
10f01b8cc93fd002081167b0

There is ALWAYS something that can be done to MAGA. But if you are Trumptard, nothing positive comes to mind. Instead, get a drink and a smoke. Maybe stuff yourself with fast food and break the speed limits and run stoplights. Throw some trash out your car window. That is Trumptard Freedom.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 5:23 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”

The S&P 500, which tracks the performance of the nation’s top publicly traded companies, posted its largest single-day gain since 2008 after Trump pumped the brakes on part of his tariff scheme, which had sent global markets into a tailspin in recent days.

Trump announced his decision hours after effectively urging Americans to buy stocks in a morning post on Truth Social — though at the time, there was no public information indicating that any kind of tariff announcement was imminent.

How is this not market manipulation?

When Trump’s pause announcement came hours later, U.S. equities skyrocketed, adding over $5 trillion in value to the market in a matter of hours. Elon Musk, a top Trump lieutenant and the world’s richest man, saw his wealth (largely in Tesla stock) soar by nearly $30 billion on Wednesday, according to Forbes‘ real-time billionaire tracker.

Is nobody, no government department, going to jump on this?

https://angrybearblog.com/2025/04/this-is-a-great-time-to-buy-djt

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 5:40 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

“The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on CBS on Sunday.

Bank of America Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan said in a Thursday note that the iPhone 16 Pro, which is currently priced at $1,199, could increase 25% based on labor costs alone. That would make it a roughly $1,500 device.

Here’s how much a ‘Made in the USA’ iPhone would cost
Published Fri, Apr 11, 2025, 8:00 AM EDT

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/11/heres-how-much-a-made-in-the-usa-iphon
e-would-cost.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 5:55 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Everything He Touches Dies

By Andrew Tobias | April 11, 2025

https://andrewtobias.com/everything-he-touches-dies/

It’s not as though we weren’t warned.

Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever.

That was published in 2018.

-----------------

This was published a few days after Trump won:

Is Trump trying to kill us? Authoritarian expert says yes. Here’s how.

-----------------

Yesterday, The Economist gave us The Age of Chaos: How Trump’s Incoherent Trade Policy Will Do Lasting Damage.

Just a few months ago, The Economist dubbed our economy “the envy of the world.”

Because — despite its problems — it was.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 6:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Like I've told Second many times before, not a single thing one of us can do about any of it now.
You can buy ammo and shoot some Trumptards.

Go ahead and do it then, faggot.

Stop telling me about it and just do it.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 6:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”

The S&P 500, which tracks the performance of the nation’s top publicly traded companies, posted its largest single-day gain since 2008 after Trump pumped the brakes on part of his tariff scheme, which had sent global markets into a tailspin in recent days.

Trump announced his decision hours after effectively urging Americans to buy stocks in a morning post on Truth Social — though at the time, there was no public information indicating that any kind of tariff announcement was imminent.

How is this not market manipulation?

When Trump’s pause announcement came hours later, U.S. equities skyrocketed, adding over $5 trillion in value to the market in a matter of hours. Elon Musk, a top Trump lieutenant and the world’s richest man, saw his wealth (largely in Tesla stock) soar by nearly $30 billion on Wednesday, according to Forbes‘ real-time billionaire tracker.

Is nobody, no government department, going to jump on this?

https://angrybearblog.com/2025/04/this-is-a-great-time-to-buy-djt

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Shut the fuck up, bitch.

He told everyone online. It's not anything like how Nancy Pelosi made $250 Million doing insider trading her entire political career while you spent decades ignoring it because it was politically inconvenient for you.

That bitch is going to prison, along with a lot of the rest of your dead political party.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 8:49 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Just a few months ago, The Economist dubbed our economy “the envy of the world.”

Because — despite its problems — it was.

No, it wasn't. Neither Russians nor Chinese envy our so-called economy.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, April 11, 2025 8:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, you are out of your fucking little mind with your talk of Democrats Destroying America.

No. I am not.

Democrats hate America. Democrats hate Americans. Democrats are evil.

Democrats are dead.

Your party is dead.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

And, one day, SECOND will be dead. And when that happens the world will be a better place.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 7:20 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, you are out of your fucking little mind with your talk of Democrats Destroying America.

No. I am not.

Democrats hate America. Democrats hate Americans. Democrats are evil.

Democrats are dead.

Your party is dead.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
And, one day, SECOND will be dead. And when that happens the world will be a better place.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Signym and 6ix, at the end of the Civil War, the slave-owners refused to acknowledge that they were evil. They never understood that their former way of life, which depended on slaves suffering, was evil. After Reconstruction ended, the former Confederates had an economic system that was almost unchanged, except now the former slave-owners no longer had any legal obligations to treat their laborers with respect and decency. In defeat, they were even worse people than before the War! What I am saying is that evil, selfish, lazy people like Signym and 6ix and Confederates don't see themselves as evil, selfish and lazy. Instead, they complain about virtue-signalling because they absolutely hate anyone who is not evil, selfish and lazy like themselves, characteristics they deny having but which they have in abundance. These rotten people have difficult lives full of tribulations which the rotten people refuse to admit they caused for themselves and they can stop being rotten at anytime, but they won't.

P.S. for those who don't know Signym and 6ix: These two have repeatedly shown how evil they both are by writing many, many times the two word sentence Fuck Ukraine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 7:23 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Tariffs
https://xkcd.com/3073

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 11:08 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The One Thing That Brought Trump Close to Reality This Week April 12, 2025 5:45 AM

If there’s anything that can get through to Trump …

Last week, Donald Trump set in place a tariff plan that, if carried through, would at least cause a recession and at most put an end to our American-led economic and international order. He then played golf four days in a row. (Respect.) He and his team didn’t necessarily mind the stock market going down 10 or 15 percent—supposedly that would be the temporary pain. The more worrisome sign came when the bond market began to careen off the edge. One particular red alert was how the yield on 10-year Treasurys was shooting directly up, when typically, they should be a safe haven for investors in bear markets. That’s one of those existential signs that the rest of the world is thinking about moving on from you. Trump’s advisers publicly denied that the bond market had anything to do with the Wednesday decision to issue a 90-day “pause” on reciprocal tariffs. Privately, though, they said that was exactly the reason for the climb-down, and Trump himself conceded that markets were getting a little too “yippy” for his taste. Unfortunately, we’re afraid Trump needs to take another look at the bond market. Despite a one-day stock market rally after Trump’s “pause”—which still left tariffs at their highest levels in 100 years—everything resumed crashing by Thursday, with stocks and the dollar down and Treasury yields skyrocketing back up. This is the financial equivalent of someone (in this case, all other countries) breaking up with you via text. We know what we did.

Scott Bessent and other Trumptard dorks claim that everything is going according to plan. What really happened here is that Trump, who thinks that tariffs are a direct tax that the U.S. puts on other countries, did something impossibly reckless, because he could, and then had to begin walking it back. But his deputies have been tasked with conveying these actions as if he had just played the world. “No one creates leverage for himself like POTUS,” Bessent posted. Commerce Secretary Howard “Good Times” Lutnick, sharing a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the pause, wrote about how he and Bessent sat beside Trump as he drafted “one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency.” White House policy chief Stephen Miller wrote that “you have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history.” The only thing more head-spinning than some of these lines is that there’s an audience that will believe it.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/trump-tariffs-pause-market
s-still-bad.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 11:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If we had 200 years to get things done like China was, great Sigs.

Trump has 2 years to do it. If he breaks anything we need that can't be fixed by mid-terms, he loses. If he can't get his agenda done in 2 years, we all lose. We don't have time for sector-by-sector. Even if another Republican is voted in in 2028, they won't be Trump, and there's a very good chance they end up being another Establishment NeoCon or somebody in line with them. We already know that most of our Government is not pro-America and doesn't give a shit about America's future.

Democrats will go right back to destroying America in 2 years if things aren't better, and that's because we still haven't put IQ minimums on voting, and 75% of the retards on social media get all their news from reading headlines and passing them along without anyone bothering to read the articles.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, you are out of your fucking little mind with your talk of Democrats Destroying America.

No. I am not.

Democrats hate America. Democrats hate Americans. Democrats are evil.

Democrats are dead.

Your party is dead.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
And, one day, SECOND will be dead. And when that happens the world will be a better place.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Signym and 6ix, at the end

Nobody cares about your opinions.

Meanwhile... in reality.

CNN: "Shocking" Data Shows Americans Believe Republicans Care More About People, Democrats
Are The Party Of The People No More

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/04/11/enten_shocking_data
_shows_americans_believe_republicans_care_more_about_people_democrats_are_the_party_of_the_people_no_more.html

Your party sucks. You're party is fucking dead.

You suck...

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 11:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Tariffs
https://xkcd.com/3073

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Yeah. That just about sums up your average BluSky user's understanding of anything.

It's the same group of college "educated" white kids who think that electricity that comes
out of their wall is magic from Hogwarts.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 5:02 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Steve Witkoff, ambassador at large. Out of all of Trump's appointees (Rubio, Waltz, Kellogg) he seems to be the only one with his head screwed on straight...

Quote:
Trump Envoy In First 'Direct, Constructive' Contact With Iran After Laying Down Red Line
Saturday, Apr 12, 2025 - 12:45 PM

Not very much happened at the much-anticipated 'indirect' meeting between Iranian and US delegations in Oman on Saturday. While Tehran has been emphasizing the indirect nature of the dialogue, President Trump and his top officials have been calling these 'direct' talks.

The main 'positive' is that the two sides didn't yell each other out the room, or make new accusations - instead they agreed to keep the diplomatic engagement going.

"Iran and the United States will hold more negotiations next week over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, Iranian state television reported Saturday at the end of the first round of talks between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to the White House," The Associated Press reports as the meeting wrapped up.

As for whether they were 'direct' or not, Iranian state did say that Trump regional onvoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi "briefly spoke in the presence of the Omani foreign minister" at the end of the talks.

Since Iran, the USA, and Russia all say they want the same thing [no nuclear weapons in Iran] this should be an easy fix. What Iran probably wants in return is an easing of sanctions.

Last time [JCPOA, Obama] Iran stuck to its side of the deal but the USA ... as usual... failed to ease sanctions as promised.

This time, Iran won't make that same mistake by trusting the USA. There will be credible consequences if the USA fails to live up to its side of the bargain.

Right now, Iran has a credible stockpile of 60% enriched uranium. Nuclear power plants only need 3%, and it's just a short hop from 60% to 90% (they say).

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 6:06 PM

Those dogs shouldn't have access to anything radioactive.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 6:27 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Last time [JCPOA, Obama] Iran stuck to its side of the deal but the USA ... as usual... failed to ease sanctions as promised.

"the USA ... as usual ... failed" is incorrect. It was Trump who failed. The USA kept its promise to lift sanctions, but on May 8, 2018, Trump ordered sanctions re-imposed:

"The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into." - President Donald J. Trump

PROTECTING AMERICA FROM A BAD DEAL: President Donald J. Trump is re-imposing sanctions lifted under the deal.

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-do
nald-j-trump-ending-united-states-participation-unacceptable-iran-deal/

May 11, 2020
A worthless withdrawal: Two years since President Trump abandoned the JCPOA

Quote:
Two years ago, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA promising that he could create a better deal and a safer world. He has nothing to show for it now, other than increased U.S. isolation on the global stage and an Iranian government that is closer to a nuclear capability. His maniacal need to follow through on a campaign promise has not only proven to be a worthless gesture, it is now clear that it was a reckless act that has made this country less safe.

https://armscontrolcenter.org/a-worthless-withdrawal-two-years-since-p
resident-trump-abandoned-the-jcpoa/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 6:44 PM

Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 8:15 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Exactly the same as Trump deciding he would not keep a nuclear treaty with Iran, George Bush decided he would not keep a nuclear treaty with North Korea signed in October 21, 1994:

Just four pages long, the agreement said that North Korea would shut down its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, abandon two others, and seal fuel that could potentially be used to create a nuclear weapon. In exchange, the U.S. would provide oil to make up for the fuel lost from the dismantled plants and would build two new “light fuel” plants from which it would be harder to extract nuclear materials. If North Korea did try to get fuel out of the new plants, it would be easy for nuclear watchdogs to identify—and hard to hide. In addition, the agreement promised that the U.S. would lift economic sanctions and its diplomatic freeze on North Korea and agree that it would not use nuclear weapons of its own on North Korea.

At first it seemed like George W. Bush, who took office in 2001, might continue Clinton-era diplomatic policies toward North Korea. But then things fell apart. Bush’s diplomats stopped sending fuel shipments; North Korea complained bitterly that the promised nuclear reactors had never been built.

North Korea dropped out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. By 2006, it had conducted its first nuclear test.

https://www.history.com/articles/north-korea-nuclear-deal-bill-clinton
-agreed-framework

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, April 12, 2025 8:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Exactly the same

Fuck you too.

Nobody cares about your opinion about anything.

Ask your family and they'll tell you they agree with me.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 4:50 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

And this is where you turn into SECOND and want to see a whole bunch of people wiped out.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 7:55 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
And this is where you turn into SECOND and want to see a whole bunch of people wiped out.

America would be made great again if all Trumptards were dead. Trumptards are killing themselves, but not fast enough.

Quote:
6ixStringJack wrote:
And with my athletic-leaning-toward-muscular build, I used to break the BMI chart and they called me overweight before the Diabetes hit. And back in my power lifting days when I was built like a brick shithouse I was considered morbidly obese.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64887&mid=12165
40#1216540

6ixStringJack has forgotten the illegal drugs he took for muscle growth harmed him in ways he has not yet learned. The price of Trumptard Freedom to be a jackass is ill health as they get older. I see illness in all old Trumptards caused by Trumptard drinking, smoking, libertine sex lives, drug taking, gluttony, etc. If all Trumptards would follow Rush Limbaugh's example and kill themselves quickly, America would be great this year.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 7:59 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Exactly the same

Fuck you too.

Nobody cares about your opinion about anything.

Ask your family and they'll tell you they agree with me.

Does not matter if you care or not. There are consequences for Trumptards being stupid:

Trump Brings Britain’s ‘Moron Premium’ to the U.S. Economy

What America might have learned, but didn’t, from Britain’s 2022 financial-markets debacle

By Paul Mason | April 12, 2025, 9 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/trump-truss-moron-
premium/682421/

When Donald Trump launched his tariff war on April 2, lawmakers in Europe struggled to understand the strategy. Was it a bluff, or did he really mean to collapse global trade, stock markets, and the Western alliance in one reckless game of 4-D chess?

On April 9, however, the president discovered something that we in the United Kingdom already know: Against the bond market, there is only 2-D chess, and you always lose. Because the Brits have been here before.

In September 2022, after the ousting of Boris Johnson as Conservative leader, the new prime minister, Liz Truss, launched an unscheduled Budget statement designed to rip up the rules of fiscal policy. She would enact £160 billion worth of tax cuts over five years, funded entirely by borrowing, in defiance of advice from the U.K. Treasury’s most senior official, whom she sacked on day one of her administration.

The government’s fiscal watchdog, set up to prevent the kind of debacle that was about to happen, was sidelined. Commentators, myself included, who warned that the heavily indebted country might face a sudden stop of foreign investment were ignored.

The consequences came fast. The pound slid, the yield on 10-year government bonds soared close to 5 percent, and we then discovered that lenders’ margin calls on leveraged bond trades—demanding an additional commitment of capital to prop up the loans—were forcing pension funds to raise money by dumping gilt-edged securities into a falling market.

With key pension schemes close to collapse, Truss reversed the entire package; sacked her finance minister while he was midair over the Atlantic Ocean on his way back from an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington, D.C.; and resigned after just 45 days in office, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in history. Toward the end, Britain’s tabloid press began livestreaming images of a supermarket lettuce, betting that it would outlast Truss’s tenure. It did.

Helen Lewis: Liz Truss fought the lettuce, and the lettuce won
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/why-liz-truss-resign
ed-britain-political-instability/671805/

With Trump’s tariff pause, some important details are different. Unlike the United Kingdom, which is exposed to external liabilities worth more than five times its GDP, the United States bears much smaller risks from investors dumping the dollar and Treasury bonds simultaneously. And Truss’s mistake was a simple act of economic hubris rather than part of a geopolitical grand strategy, as Trump’s trade policy claims to be.

Yet something can be learned from the similarities. In both cases, the crucial days saw equities and bonds fall in tandem—something the high-finance textbook says should not happen. Normally, when stock markets are falling, investors switch to the safety of government bonds. Today, we are seeing capital flight from an entire national entity.

Since Truss’s resignation, the U.K. has suffered permanently higher bond yields and higher debt-servicing costs than its European peers. At the same time, interest rates on household mortgages have remained painfully high—a phenomenon dubbed the “moron premium” by her detractors.

Inflicting pain on U.S. investors may be part of the president’s plan, to show China that in pursuit of economic decoupling, America is prepared to suffer. But once you break a complex system, stuff tends to happen that you didn’t intend.

As I write, the dollar is falling and—despite the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs—the yield on a 30-year Treasury bond is close to 5 percent. That means the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government is now double what it was five years ago, because investors are demanding higher returns for holding the safest debt in the world. If both of these circumstances persist next week, and begin to affect Americans’ income, the moron premium may cross the Atlantic.

Whether Trump planned to withdraw the reciprocal tariffs within seven days of imposing them is difficult to determine, but the evidence suggests that he did not. The more probable interpretation is that he caved under pressure from both the markets and Republicans in Congress who were growing anxious about the risk of a recession and what that would do to the party’s electoral prospects.

Trump gave in for the same reason Truss did. For the second time in three years, the reckless leader of a major English-speaking power has played mind games with global bond investors and lost. Just as Truss weakened Britain in the long term, both the style of Trump’s tariff gambit and its outcome may have weakened America.

Read: The tariff damage that can’t be undone
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/trump-tariff-pause
-damage/682390/

One rationale for Trump’s plan has some legitimacy: If the U.S. wants to reindustrialize, to ensure its own long-term security in the face of China’s rise, then forcibly preventing the flood of manufactured goods into America is one way of doing that, albeit brutal and risky. But the logical outcome of that approach would be the end of dollar dominance. The U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world is what creates the demand for foreigners to hold its government debt. Once that demand is suppressed, the U.S. will cease to become the global supplier of safe securities. In addition, by treating former geopolitical friends as enemies, he risks sacrificing all of the premiums that arise from the dollar’s prestige and stability.

Trump appears to believe he can solve the latter problem through what the Cold War strategist Thomas Schelling called “compellence.” America will strong-arm the rest of the world to go on lending to it, despite the newly unfavourable terms. It will use the threat of tariffs to force Europeans to buy such American food products as chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef—which their governments currently ban on health grounds—and the U.S. oil they no longer need, through a mix of chaos, disinformation, and chutzpah.

But that is irrational because it requires Trump and his allies to establish an instrumental, political version of “exorbitant privilege,” as a French finance minister once described America’s sway over the global economic order. This would be the right to dictate: to Britain that it ceases jailing people who harass women outside abortion clinics; to Germany that it allows free speech for fascists; to Ukraine that it gives away territory. A plan based on coercion of America’s allies, rather than of its adversaries, seems very unlikely to work.

At a geopolitical level, the Trump administration appears torn among three strategies. The first was outlined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Brussels in February: Our focus is the Pacific, so we are deprioritizing conventional military deterrence against Russia; it’s up to the Europeans to hike their defense spending to 5 percent and to keep Ukraine in the fight. That is a reality most European nations are now ready to accept.

The second, less palatable strategy would be a 21st-century version of the Monroe Doctrine: forget confrontation with China; solidify control over the Americas by subordinating Panama, Canada, and Greenland; and prosper through industrial self-sufficiency. A third might involve Trump’s offer of a strategic deal to Russia to break its alliance with China—what some analysts have called a “Reverse Nixon”—which might appeal to Vladimir Putin but would effectively end NATO’s Article V collective-security guarantee to European nations threatened by Russia.

For Europe’s leaders, option three would represent a deadly threat. And because they fear that all of these options are in play, their reactions to the tariff war are framed primarily through a security lens, not an economic one. In most European capitals, the United States is already seen as an unreliable ally, an unstable democracy, and a destructive force for economic stability.

The week’s market chaos orchestrated by Trump comes on top of this. The danger now is that, just as with the Truss fiasco, Americans will pay a permanent price for a crazed gestural event. Unlike what happened with Truss, who was swiftly deposed by her own party’s lawmakers, the U.S. has no immediate prospect of getting rid of the man in charge. Most Europeans know that, if Trump’s goal is to treat them as the enemy in a trade war and to hand parts of the European continent to Vladimir Putin, then Europe, too, has options. One is to unite the rest of the West into a global free-trade zone, encompassing not just Europe itself but also Australia and Canada. Another is to make a strategic economic rapprochement with China—and European Union leaders have already arranged to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in a few months’ time. A third option is to shut America’s tech and service companies out of the European market, together with its defense giants.

Any of these options would have seemed unthinkable until very recently. Now Britain and Europe’s roughly 500 million citizens are very much thinking about what they might look like in practice. Should the Western alliance fracture irrevocably, along trade and security fault lines, the consequences for the United States would be negative in both dimensions.

If America is now entering a period of strategic confrontation with China, it would need allies and supply chains spanning continents from the Nordic countries to the Red Sea. Alliances and supply chains are both built on trust. The U.S. reserves of trust just went way down.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 8:35 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Yesterday’s sudden move to exempt electronics made the Trump tariffs even worse.

Why? Three reasons.

1. For electronics we’re now putting much higher tariffs on intermediate goods used in manufacturing than on final goods. This actually discourages manufacturing in the United States. Joey Politano puts it well:

Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff
Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff
Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff

2. Uncertainty created by ever-changing tariff plans is arguably a bigger problem than the tariffs themselves. So look at the timeline so far. First we had the sudden imposition of average tariffs bigger than Smoot-Hawley. Then, a week later, Trump ditched that plan and replaced it with a plan that imposed average tariffs roughly the same size, but with the tariffs on individual countries either much higher or much lower than in the first plan. Then tariffs were taken off some but not all products just three days later. At this rate we’ll soon see tariffs changing every day.

3. The stench of corruption around these policies keeps getting stronger. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence for massive insider trading around last week’s tariff announcement; the big beneficiaries from the latest move are companies that made big donations to Trump. Investing in plant and equipment looks like a bad idea given the uncertainty, but investing in bribes for the ruling family clearly yields excellent returns.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-trump-tariffs-just-got-even-wor
se

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 11:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
And this is where you turn into SECOND and want to see a whole bunch of people wiped out.
America would be made great again if all Trumptards were dead. Trumptards are killing themselves, but not fast enough.
Quote:
6ixStringJack wrote:
And with my athletic-leaning-toward-muscular build, I used to break the BMI chart and they called me overweight before the Diabetes hit. And back in my power lifting days when I was built like a brick shithouse I was considered morbidly obese.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64887&mid=12165
40#1216540

6ixStringJack has forgotten the illegal drugs he took for muscle growth harmed him in ways he has not yet learned. The price of Trumptard Freedom to be a jackass is ill health as they get older. I see illness in all old Trumptards caused by Trumptard drinking, smoking, libertine sex lives, drug taking, gluttony, etc. If all Trumptards would follow Rush Limbaugh's example and kill themselves quickly, America would be great this year.

I didn't take anything illegal. Although, I DID take stuff from GNC. Very possible that some Amino Acid or Creatine pills, or the copious amounts of shit tasting protein shakes on top of the 6,000 calories per day I ate for 2 years had some negative effect.

Let's just say that with all the stuff the FDA has approved that's made us the least healthy 1st world nation, even the FDA won't approve 90% of the stuff in a GNC once you leave the vitamin counter.

Although it might just be that nobody at GNC had powerful lobbyists.

It's actually shocking in retrospect to think there was anything the FDA didn't approve.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 12:22 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I didn't take anything illegal. Although, I DID take stuff from GNC. Very possible that some Amino Acid or Creatine pills, or the copious amounts of shit tasting protein shakes on top of the 6,000 calories per day I ate for 2 years had some negative effect.

Let's just say that with all the stuff the FDA has approved that's made us the least healthy 1st world nation, even the FDA won't approve 90% of the stuff in a GNC once you leave the vitamin counter.

Although it might just be that nobody at GNC had powerful lobbyists.

It's actually shocking in retrospect to think there was anything the FDA didn't approve.

The FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are marketed because the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. FDA cannot review supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed. Only after numerous deaths can the FDA do something.

I have found that Autopsy Reports are useful to determine how crazy were Trumptards in life. https://ifs.harriscountytx.gov/family-services/Autopsy-Reports

From a Trumptard's autopsy: PATHOLOGICAL FINDINGS

1. Toxic effects of cocaine - cocaine (parent drug) and benzoylecgonine (metabolite) detected in blood

2. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease:
a. Severe atherosclerosis of left anterior descending and distal left main coronary arteries
b. Proximal calcification of major coronary arteries
c. Mild abdominal aortic atherosclerosis

3. Hypertensive cardiovascular disease:
a. Cardiomegaly (475 grams)
b. Left ventricular myocardial hypertrophy
c. Bi-ventricular dilation
d. Arteriolar nephrosclerosis**

4. Obesity (64 inches, 241 pounds) [6ixStringJack during his power-lifting stage of life.]

** Arteriolar nephrosclerosis, also known as hypertensive arteriolar nephrosclerosis, is kidney damage caused by chronic, poorly controlled high blood pressure. It leads to progressive kidney impairment and is a common cause of end-stage renal disease. The condition involves thickening and scarring of the small arteries and arterioles within the kidneys, impairing blood flow and damaging the glomeruli and tubulointerstitial tissues.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 12:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I didn't take anything illegal. Although, I DID take stuff from GNC. Very possible that some Amino Acid or Creatine pills, or the copious amounts of shit tasting protein shakes on top of the 6,000 calories per day I ate for 2 years had some negative effect.

Let's just say that with all the stuff the FDA has approved that's made us the least healthy 1st world nation, even the FDA won't approve 90% of the stuff in a GNC once you leave the vitamin counter.

Although it might just be that nobody at GNC had powerful lobbyists.

It's actually shocking in retrospect to think there was anything the FDA didn't approve.
The FDA does not approve dietary supplements before they are marketed because the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. FDA cannot review supplements for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed. Only after numerous deaths can the FDA do something.

I have found that Autopsy Reports are useful to determine how crazy were Trumptards in life. https://ifs.harriscountytx.gov/family-services/Autopsy-Reports

From a Trumptard's autopsy: PATHOLOGICAL FINDINGS

1. Toxic effects of cocaine - cocaine (parent drug) and benzoylecgonine (metabolite) detected in blood

2. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease:
a. Severe atherosclerosis of left anterior descending and distal left main coronary arteries
b. Proximal calcification of major coronary arteries
c. Mild abdominal aortic atherosclerosis

3. Hypertensive cardiovascular disease:
a. Cardiomegaly (475 grams)
b. Left ventricular myocardial hypertrophy
c. Bi-ventricular dilation
d. Arteriolar nephrosclerosis**

4. Obesity (64 inches, 241 pounds) [6ixStringJack during his power-lifting stage of life.]

** Arteriolar nephrosclerosis, also known as hypertensive arteriolar nephrosclerosis, is kidney damage caused by chronic, poorly controlled high blood pressure. It leads to progressive kidney impairment and is a common cause of end-stage renal disease. The condition involves thickening and scarring of the small arteries and arterioles within the kidneys, impairing blood flow and damaging the glomeruli and tubulointerstitial tissues.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Yes. We already know that Democrat voters live forever because they always make the right choices and none of them have any vices.

Say hi to Kevin Drum for me.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 12:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Trump Brings Britain’s ‘Moron Premium’ to the U.S. Economy

...

As I write, the dollar is falling and—despite the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs—the yield on a 30-year Treasury bond is close to 5 percent. That means the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government is now double what it was five years ago, because investors are demanding higher returns for holding the safest debt in the world. If both of these circumstances persist next week, and begin to affect Americans’ income, the moron premium may cross the Atlantic.

Curiously, falling Treasuries weren't caused by China dumping them, or generic panicked investors selling them "en masse", but by one single holder .... Japan. This was a targeted move to force Trump to reverse his tariffs on Japan.

AFA the bond trade ... as I gather, there is a HIGHLY LEVERAGED trade in current bond yields v future bond yields called the "basis trade". Like many "futures" trades/ hedges, speculators borrow a crapton of $$ to buy positions on both sides and make $ off the difference, which they reap when the position is settled. But if one position collapses they're suddenly on the hook for both. Personally, I think that the tariffs were, or should be, a warning shot across the bow, telling speculators to deleverage.

And Jamie Dimon agrees with me.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:24 PM

BRENDA

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Muhammad was a prophet and I would say something akin to Jesus. Allah is just another word for god.

Oh and when Elon was throwing around that people into their hundreds were getting Social Security. In a way he was referring to my aunts because IF they were still alive today. They would both be in their hundreds. My oldest would be 122 and the youngest 112.

I worry more about the US than a lot of people do as you are heading down a slipper slope and that is not good.

The US is more or less my family's home. My grandmother's home, her mother's, her parent's, and so on.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:29 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yes. We already know that Democrat voters live forever because they always make the right choices and none of them have any vices.

6ix, do you comprehend the difference between living to 100 years and death at 60? I'm just asking because you don't comprehend the possibility of you being a total asshole as the cause of your early death. That autopsy was for a Trumptard who was a total asshole at work and home causing death at 59 years old.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:32 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Curiously, falling Treasuries weren't caused by China dumping them, or generic panicked investors selling them "en masse", but by one single holder .... Japan. This was a targeted move to force Trump to reverse his tariffs on Japan.

Signym, you have no proof of that. You just pulled that Japan falsehood out of your ass because you don't want to admit that Trump is a fucking idiot about how finance works and everyone in the bond market, not just Japan, knows it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yes. We already know that Democrat voters live forever because they always make the right choices and none of them have any vices.

Say hi to Kevin Drum for me.
6ix, do you comprehend the difference between living to 100 years and death at 60? I'm just asking because you don't comprehend the possibility of you being a total asshole as the cause of your early death. That autopsy was for a Trumptard who was a total asshole at work and home causing death at 59 years old.

We've already been over this many times before. Nobody cares about your anecdotes or your bullshit.

Kevin Drum died at 66 despite voting Democrat all his life.

Shut the fuck up.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:39 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:

I worry more about the US than a lot of people do as you are heading down a slipper slope and that is not good.

The US is more or less my family's home. My grandmother's home, her mother's, her parent's, and so on.

You are very correct about the path Trump is setting for the US. Here is a long article about where Trump is ultimately taking the country. Chairman Mao once took China very far along the same path. Millions died for Mao's foolishness. In the US the same could happen because of Trump's funny brain telling him what to do next:

Trump Has Found His Class Enemy

The president unleashes a Marxist theory of power—but against knowledge workers, not billionaires.

By Franklin Foer | April 13, 2025

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-waging-war-pro
fessional-class/682409/

Even the educated mind, or perhaps especially the educated mind, is skilled at deflecting harsh realities. That’s why so many white-shoe lawyers have failed to publicly support their colleagues in firms that President Donald Trump has targeted. It’s why universities have barely fought him in court, even as he has butchered their funding. Law partners and university presidents like to talk their way out of problems, and they apparently believe that they can ultimately evade the fate that befalls those who resist Trump. They assume that he merely craves gestures of submission—and that once obeisance has been paid, he will move on to his next target.

That, however, underestimates the social revolution that the Trump administration is trying to unleash. Its goal isn’t just to shatter a few institutions. It intends to crush the power and authority of whole professions, to severely weaken, if not purge, a social class.

The target of the administration’s campaign is a stratum of society that’s sometimes called the professional managerial class, or the PMC, although there’s not one universal moniker that MAGA applies to the group it is now crushing. That group includes society’s knowledge workers, its cognitive elite, the winners of the tournament that is the American meritocracy. It covers not only lawyers, university administrators, and professors, but also consultants, investment bankers, scientists, journalists, and other white-collar workers who have prospered in the information age. Back in the 1990s, as the group began to emerge in its current form, the liberal economics commentator Robert Reich hailed its members as “symbolic analysts”—people who identify and solve problems by thinking through ideas rather than via physical labor. A decade later, the urbanist Richard Florida put forth an even more triumphalist term: the “creative class.” That is, its members had the academic training to master the complexities of a globalized economy, the intellectual skills to conquer the digital world.

Not so long ago, the upper-middle-class Americans who exemplify the PMC would have filled the ranks of both parties. But beginning in the 1990s, professionals began migrating in large numbers to the Democrats. Many affluent people with a cosmopolitan outlook were repelled by the GOP’s social stances and drawn to the economic moderation of politicians such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

As the group made this partisan turn, the right zeroed in on the PMC as the enemy within. Conservative populists didn’t just disagree with the PMC’s political preferences; they accused an institutional elite of conniving to extend its own power. By inculcating a worldview hatched on university campuses—call it progressive or “woke”—this elite hopes to assert its dominion over the rest of society. It masquerades as the purveyor of science and objectivity, but it really is a hegemonic caste.

Animosity to the PMC is a propulsive force in Trump’s second term. Rather than merely replacing its ideological foes—by installing its own appointees in federal agencies—the administration is bent on destroying their institutional homes, and the basis for their livelihood. That’s the lesson of the Department of Government Efficiency. In short order, DOGE has engaged in mass firings—sweeping attacks on the civil service as an autonomous bastion of power. The administration has moved to uproot the diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy that sprawls across corporations and nonprofits. Although the federal government cannot crush entire universities and law firms outright, Trump has attempted to undermine their business models. The administration has eliminated many of the grants that fund research at major universities—and Republicans in Congress have proposed taxing these institutions’ endowments as well. Trump has stigmatized law firms by reprimanding them in executive orders, signaling to clients and potential clients that these firms will always be at a disadvantage in dealings with the government.

In its strange inversion of American politics, the Trump administration has come far closer to executing a Marxist theory of power than any of its progressive predecessors. It has waged class warfare, not against billionaires but against a far more ubiquitous enemy. And it has done so with a certainty that justifies terrible excesses, a desire to purge that it has only just begun to realize.

When Donald Trump first entered presidential politics, his attitude toward the elite was comically inconsistent. One lobe of his brain equated Ivy League degrees with intelligence. “I went to Wharton School of Business,” he once said. “I’m like, a really smart person.” He would extol his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a Harvard man. But another lobe of his brain processed the world in the blunt dichotomies of populism: The elites were shafting the people; the globalists were lining their pockets at the expense of real Americans; there was a “swamp” and a “deep state.”

The American right’s version of populism has always been the product of a divided mind. In the 1960s, William F. Buckley Jr., a Yale graduate and the child of an oil magnate, famously quipped, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”

But the ideological roots of the Trump administration’s campaign against the PMC can be traced back decades further. In the 1930s, the political theorist James Burnham was a disciple of the exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Burnham absorbed Trotsky’s core complaint with the Soviet Union: that it had been hijacked by a clique of bureaucrats who tended to their own interests at the expense of society, and had veered from the righteous path.

Accepting that critique of the Soviet state set Burnham on a path of apostasy. In 1940, he broke ranks with Trotsky, rejected socialism altogether, and turned rightward. But in the course of his conversion, he retained a strain of his former idol’s old analysis. Nearly everywhere he turned, he saw the danger of a domineering bureaucratic caste, even in the United States, the heart of the free-market economy.

In his 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution, Burnham argued that within the American corporation, power actually resided with managers, the experts who mastered the sprawling, technically intricate means of industrial production, not with the men who owned companies. The same dynamic held in government. It was bureaucrats, not members of Congress, who determined the path of democracy. The bureaucrats were an authoritarian cabal in the making.

The book became an unlikely hit, selling more than 100,000 copies. Burnham’s critique of the managerial elite also became a canonical text for young conservatives such as Buckley. Over time, Burnham’s idea thrived and morphed to keep pace with the zeitgeist.

Thanks to the Baby Boom, universities were exploding by the late 1960s, creating a huge new professoriate. Thanks to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the federal bureaucracy was expanding too, creating an army of social workers, government lawyers, and economists. Society showed the influence of what Irving Kristol described as “the new class.” To Kristol, an intellectual who had followed Burnham’s trajectory from Trotskyism to conservatism, this new class seemed nefarious because it showed little interest in making money. Instead, it craved power and exploited progressive ideas as a guise for achieving it. By Kristol’s account, the new class leveraged its control of the media, the academy, and the government to implant its self-serving ideas in the nation.

Conservatives weren’t the only ones who perceived the power of the PMC; indeed, the term professional-managerial class was popularized by the liberal intellectuals Barbara and John Ehrenreich. But arguments such as Burnham’s and Kristol’s have made a deeper impression on the modern right than on the left. As conservatives gained control over the levers of government, especially in the George W. Bush administration, an ever more overt disdain for expertise guided policy, as the White House eschewed opinions emanating from CIA analysts and mainstream economists. By 2016, Peter Thiel, the Trump booster and Silicon Valley investor, was fuming that America was now “dominated by very unelected, technocratic agencies.” During Trump’s first term, American Affairs, the most rarefied of the MAGA-adjacent outlets, ran essay after essay about the pernicious power of the professional managerial class. But the theories of new class and managerial caste didn’t truly become the guiding ideology of the state until the second Trump term.

In the battle between the warring lobes of Trump’s brain, his sense of grievance ultimately prevailed. Subjected to media criticism and legal investigations during his first term, he not only raged against his PMC adversaries but also began to fantasize about exacting retribution against them.

To the right’s own intelligentsia, two major developments that gathered force during Trump’s first presidency seemingly vindicated Burnham as a prophet who foresaw how the PMC would flex its power. One was the institutional embrace of left-wing identity politics. Corporations had spawned whole new bureaucracies devoted to DEI. Workers at Google, Nike, and The New York Times prodded the owners to shift politically in a progressive direction, ousting employees who allegedly held retrograde opinions on race and gender, propelling firms to promote minorities and invest in Black businesses. The PMC was flexing the power it had clawed away from corporate overlords.

The other development was COVID-19. At the behest of public-health authorities, societies ground to a halt. The shutdown exposed the entitlements of life in the PMC, whose members holed up in their homes, streaming movies and baking bread, as others exposed themselves to the disease in the course of packing meat and delivering groceries. The opinions issued by the likes of Anthony Fauci became the basis for a new gripe: that arrogant experts were using a once-in-a-century pandemic as a pretext for stifling reasonable policy debate and exerting their own control over the country.

Many titans of Silicon Valley, not just Thiel, were attracted to this critique, although they were arguably members of the PMC themselves, or at least had attended elite universities and frequented fancy conferences in mountain resorts. But they resented how the underlings in their own companies forced them to adopt progressive politics as corporate policy. And as engineers, who believed in the gospel of tinkering, they never considered themselves card-carrying members of the PMC establishment.

Elon Musk, for one, adopted a Burnham-like disdain for the PMC as a business plan. When he took over Twitter in 2022, he laid off 80 percent of the workforce, including the Trust and Safety Council and a chunk of the company’s content moderators. As the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Antonio García Martínez put it, Musk was taking a stand against “the professional-managerial class regime that otherwise elsewhere dominates.” Not only did he treat this caste with disdain; he implied that it was doomed to the dustbin of history, because its members’ functions could be so easily subsumed by artificial intelligence. A shared hatred of the PMC drew Musk to Trump, and the Twitter purge foreshadowed Musk’s approach in government.

Even before Musk attached himself and his fortune to Trump, MAGA types were making bold plans for the wholesale eradication of the PMC from American institutions during a second Trump term. Contempt for the “unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class” was a dominant theme of Project 2025, the playbook produced by the Heritage Foundation.

The attack on the PMC has proceeded with astonishing velocity. Thousands of federal employees have been fired since Trump’s inauguration, and many others have fled oppressive workplaces of their own accord. Once-thriving institutions—the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Voice of America, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, to name a few—have been either eliminated or reduced to ineffectual nubs of their former selves. Hatred for the PMC burns so intensely that it becomes the justification for sacrificing research into cures for cancer and ignoring accumulated expertise about the workings of the economy.

In a way, Trump is practicing his very own form of Maoism, a cultural revolution against the intelligentsia—what the Communist Party of China memorably deemed the “stinking ninth” class. Although Trump’s purges have been tame by comparison, there are parallels. Like Trump, Mao wanted to create manufacturing jobs in the homeland. Defying expert opinion and shunning economic common sense, Mao launched his Great Leap Forward—a disastrously unsuccessful policy of rapid industrialization—in the late ’50s. During that period and the subsequent Cultural Revolution, he resorted to scapegoating his own PMC, especially the professoriate and other cultural elites. (“Better red than expert” was a rallying cry.) His minions subjected its members to public humiliation and horrifying violence; the state exiled members of the urban bourgeoisie to the countryside for reeducation.

It’s a stretch to imagine such a scenario unfolding on American soil. But voices in MAGA are floating versions of these ideas. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently told Tucker Carlson that fired federal workers could supply “the labor we need for new manufacturing.” That is reeducation, Trump-style.

The lesson of the Cultural Revolution is that purging the PMC culminates in economic stagnation at best. In the aftermath of Maoism, social distrust flourished; anti-intellectualism resulted in historical amnesia and conformist thinking. Even if the United States avoids those outcomes, the global economic turmoil that has followed Trump’s tariff announcements hints at the perils of banishing and stigmatizing expertise. This is the dark reality of the Trump project—a vision far more comprehensive, and therefore far more corrosive, than an autocratic president’s mere thirst for vengeance.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Iran.

Fuck Muhammad and Allah.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Muhammad was a prophet and I would say something akin to Jesus. Allah is just another word for god.

Not really. Allah and God are very, very different concepts.

Fuck them both. Fuck God too.

Quote:
Oh and when Elon was throwing around that people into their hundreds were getting Social Security. In a way he was referring to my aunts because IF they were still alive today. They would both be in their hundreds. My oldest would be 122 and the youngest 112.

If nobody else in your family was still receiving benefits for them after they died, Elon was not talking about anybody in your family.

Quote:
I worry more about the US than a lot of people do as you are heading down a slipper slope and that is not good.

The US is more or less my family's home. My grandmother's home, her mother's, her parent's, and so on.

We've been sliding down that slippery slope for over 50 years. It now costs the US $100,000 per second in debt added to the total just to keep up this illusion.

I'm not worried about America at all right now. We're going to end up a lot better off than we were before.

You're probably going to lose quite a bit of stuff though in Canada when this is all over since we're not going to be paying for it anymore.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:44 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Alex Krainer, investment advisor based in Europe, is often worth a listen. I found this insightful

Neither URL works directly. You may have to copy-paste.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Alex Krainer, investment advisor based in Europe, is often worth a listen. I found this insightful

Quote:
Neither URL works directly. You may have to copy-paste.

Boy... I don't know what happened to your original links. They were both wrong for totally different reasons.

I'm re-posting them now, but the 2nd "live" video may not work here no matter what we do here.

ETA: Yeah. That's what I figured. The Live youtube links work as well on fff.net as the youtube shorts do, which is to say not at all.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 2:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

We've already been over this many times before. Nobody cares about your anecdotes or your bullshit.

Kevin Drum died at 66 despite voting Democrat all his life.

Shut the fuck up.

Lessons Learned From Kevin Drum’s Death

Long ago, when I worked for other people, I would trace back the causes of the explosions that destroyed their various petrochemical plants. The idea was to engineer a new plant which avoids the long series of stupid design mistakes that caused the ultimate disaster in the old plant.

The same can be done for the stupid mistakes of Trump, but other people have already analyzed what Trump is doing and can prove, before it happens, that Trump will cause an explosion that destroys property.

Conclusion: It took less than a month for incompetent doctors to kill Kevin Drum. It will take longer for Trump to kill the people he is supposed to be serving, but he will get there, eventually. Starting at the end:

My husband Kevin Drum passed away on Friday, March 7, 2025.
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-100/

Kevin Drum Published on March 4, 2025 – 11:43 am
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-99/

Everything is getting worse:

Other counts are getting worse and I feel terrible. Nonetheless they're slow walking the immunoglobulin treatment, which I think is my only chance. These guys are going to kill me before they figure out what's wrong.

Kevin Drum March 1, 2025 – 2:32 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-96/

When I first got to the hospital my inflammation level was sky-high. An IV steroid quickly got that down. But a couple of days ago, in their rush to discharge me, they switched to an oral steroid. Bad idea. The next day they switched back, but it was too late.

Kevin Drum February 27, 2025 – 2:38 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-95/

I walked about 15 feet today. Woo hoo!

The doctors are getting eager to kick me out, but I'm a little reluctant. Nor am I excited about moving to a skilled nursing facility for a week. At this point, I think I'm going to bargain for a Sunday or Monday release, at which point I hope to be able to hobble around for 50 feet or so.

Kevin Drum February 14, 2025 – 2:59 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-91/

Not a good day. Nothing is improving and my breathing is very shallow. Still waiting for the immunoglobulin stimulant to kick in. That might start a recovery. If not, we're running out of options.

Kevin Drum February 13, 2025 – 6:24 pm
https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-90/

Pneumonia appears slightly better today. Maybe. Hard to tell for sure.
My oncologist finally showed up this afternoon and finally agreed my immune system was shot. A multiple myeloma specialist tells me this is a common side effect of bispecific therapies like Talvey. Oh.

So we've agreed on a treatment that spurs regrowth of immunoglobulins. It will take a week or three to have an effect. It's too bad we didn't start this three weeks ago when we first knew. (NOT SURPRISING THAT KEVIN DRUM WOULD BE DEAD IN THREE WEEKS. TOO BAD THAT HIS DOCTORS ARE STUPID, LAZY MOTHERFUCKERS, PLAYING GOLF EVERYDAY, WHO CAN’T ANTICIPATE OBVIOUS PROBLEMS. But so is Trump.)

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 13, 2025 2:35 PM