Category: Economics

Remember Those Lower Drug Prices?

Our Clueless Leader had promised to lower drug prices by 1500% (unrealistic at best)….well I have not seen any lower prices on the meds I must take….how about you?

Actually a study has shown that over 600 different drugs have gone up in price…..while we wait for the promise to be fulfilled….

As President Donald Trump’s deadline for large drugmakers to make “binding commitments” to cut prices expired on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report showing that the cost of hundreds of prescriptions has risen in the United States since the Republican returned to office in January.

In response to the president’s May executive order and July letters giving drugmakers 60 days to act, Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, “directed his staff to examine prescription drug prices,” explains the report, The Art of the Bad Deal: Trump’s Failure to Lower Prescription Drug Prices.

The committee staffers documented price increases for 688 medications—310 brand-name drugs and 378 generic ones—during Trump’s second term, with a median increase of 5.5% and 25 treatments more than doubling in cost.

“Of the 17 companies that received a letter from President Trump on July 31, 2025, 15 raised the price of at least one product since Trump took office,” the report notes. “Since Trump sent letters asking drug companies to lower prices, the prices of 87 drugs have increased.”

Overall, the highest hike was 1,555% (there is that 1500% promised). Eton Pharmaceuticals increased the price of Galzin, which is used to treat a rare genetic liver disorder called Wilson’s disease, from $5,400 to $88,800 per year in the United States—even though it only costs $1,400 in the United Kingdom and $2,800 in Germany.

The report highlights some other examples, such as Novartis’ cancer drug Kymriah, which increased by $25,600, or 4.5%, to $594,000 annually. In the UK, it costs $381,000 a year, and in Germany it’s $282,000. The report also notes the company’s executive compensation last year: $83.3 million.

Vertex jacked up the price of Trikafta, used to treat cystic fibrosis, by 7%, or $23,900, to $365,000 a year, according to the report. Just north of the US, in Canada, it’s only $146,000. The company’s executive compensation for 2024 was $12.7 million.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/drug-prices-trump

Looks like once again we have been had…..an all too common result when Donny’s promises are not upheld.

But wait!

Donny and that mental midget in charge of HHS have a new plan to lower prices….

The White House is rolling out two new initiatives aimed at lowering drug prices, though many details remained in flux.

  • President Trump said Tuesday that his administration had struck a deal with Pfizer to sell its drugs to Medicaid patients at lower prices, reports the AP. He also suggested deals with other drugmakers would follow.
  • He also announced a new TrumpRx website at which people could directly buy medications at prices negotiated by the government, per the Washington Post. It was not clear when the website would be up and running. Drugs from Pfizer will be sold there.
  • The impact on everyday Americans was not immediately clear because direct-to-consumer sales are generally for people paying out of pocket rather than through insurance, explains CNBC. Because most people use insurance, such sales “are not going to help the average person at all with achieving lower costs,” says Vanderbilt professor Stacie Dusetzina.
  • The initiatives follow a Trump executive order in May that pressed pharmaceutical companies to lower prices through voluntary agreements. The deadline for those agreements expired Monday. Because of its deal, Pfizer gets a three-year grace period to avoid tariffs on drugs made overseas.
  • “The American consumers have been subsidizing research and development costs for the entire planet,” Trump said in the Oval Office, per the Wall Street Journal. “It’s being changed as of today.”

Before I give an ‘attaboy’ I want to see the rest of the story…..details are in flux does not sound good to me.

The sad part is the people that are hurt the worse are still rabid supporters of a liar and a bigot…..what does that say about the mentality of some Americans?

Keep believing and keep looking for the poor house.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will This Save Our Country?

There is a new battle over the possibility of shutting down the government….this time it is the Dems that are considering using this game to further deal with Donny….but seriously…..would that be a good idea?

The House members took the time to pass a short term plan to avoid a governmental shut-down….

The House on Friday passed a short-term spending bill to extend government funding for seven weeks and avoid a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, but prospects looked dimmer in the Senate, where the two parties show no signs of budging on the matter. The bill would generally continue existing funding levels through Nov. 21, reports the AP. Democratic leaders are adamantly opposed and are threatening a government shutdown if Republicans don’t let them have a say on the measure, as some Democratic support will be needed to get a bill to President Trump’s desk for his signature. The vote was 217-212.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had few votes to spare as he sought to persuade fellow Republicans to vote for the funding patch, something many in his conference have routinely opposed in past budget fights. But this time, GOP members see a chance to portray Democrats as responsible for a shutdown. “We were very careful. We put no partisan measures in this. There’s no poison pills. None of that,” Johnson said leading up to the vote. In a sign the vote could be close, Trump weighed in, urging House Republicans to pass the bill and put the burden on Democrats to oppose it. GOP leaders often need Trump’s help to win over holdouts on legislation. “Every House Republican should UNIFY, and VOTE YES!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said that in opposing the continuing resolution, Democrats were working to protect the health care of the American people. He said that with Republicans controlling the White House and both branches of Congress, “Republicans will own a government shutdown. Period. Full stop.” The House vote now sends the bill to the Senate, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate will vote on the measure along with a dueling Democratic proposal. But neither is expected to win the 60 votes necessary to advance.

Another close vote… playing the partisan game of do as little as possible.

At least we have a shot at some sort of logic but then it has to go to the senate, where logic goes to die….

Let the game begin….

The Senate rejected competing measures on Friday to fund federal agencies for a few weeks when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1, increasing prospects for a partial government shutdown on that date. Leaders of the two parties sought to blame the other side for the standoff, reports the AP:

  • Democrats accused Republicans of not negotiating with them to address some of their priorities on health care as part of the funding measure, even though they knew some Democratic votes would be needed to get a bill to the president’s desk.
  • Republicans said Democrats were making demands that would dramatically increase spending and were not germane to the core issue of keeping agencies fully running for a short period of time while negotiations continued on a full-year spending measure.
  • “The Republican bill is a clean, nonpartisan, short-term continuing resolution to fund the government to give us time to do the full appropriations process. And the Democrat bill is the exact opposite,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said shortly before the votes. “It’s what you might call, not a clean CR, a dirty CR—laden down with partisan policies and appeals to Democrats’ leftist base.” The AP reports the Democratic proposal would extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus reverse Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax breaks and spending cuts bill enacted earlier this year.

This song and dance bullshit is getting old….when will these turds start acting like the reps we elected them to be?

Donny is cheer leading for a shutdown…..

President Trump on Friday predicted the government would shut down “for a period of time” amid an impasse in the Senate between Republicans and Democrats.

Trump expressed some pessimism about the two sides reaching an agreement that can garner 60 votes in the Senate. Republicans have 53 seats in the chamber, meaning at least seven Democrats will need to support a funding measure to keep the government open.

“We’ll continue to talk to the Democrats, but I think you could very well end up with a closed country for a period of time,” Trump said. “And we’ll take care of the military. We’ll take care of Social Security. We’ll take care of the things we have to take care of.

“A lot of the things Democrats fight for … will not be able to be paid,” Trump added. “So we’ll watch and see how we do with that.”

(thehill.com)

This would fit nicely in his smear campaign and help make for a rally to drooling mental midgets a success.

Donny is hoping the shutdown occurs….he is licking his hateful lips.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Is Inflation Under Control?

If one does their own shopping I do not think they will see it as under control.

But Donny tells us that he has “licked inflation”…..but sadly that is another of his wild accusations that just does not hole water…..

President Donald Trump has declared inflation “solved” as Americans are paying more for everyday goods like gas and groceries.

“I’ve already solved inflation,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning. “Costs are down.”

The president went on to boast, “I’ve solved just about every problem.”

But statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor show Americans are paying more—in some cases far more—at the pump and at the checkout line.

“Inflation inched higher last month as Americans closed out the summer paying more for both groceries and gasoline,” NPR reported on Thursday. “Consumer prices in August were up 2.9% from a year ago, according to a report Thursday from the Labor Department. That’s a sharper annual increase than the previous month, when inflation was clocked at 2.7%.”

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to lower prices “on day one.”

Yet, due in part to his sweeping tariffs, “Virtually all major grocery categories are now more expensive than they were a year ago, some substantially so,” according to Axios. “This was the biggest month-over-month increase since August 2022, the tail end of a year of huge monthly increases in grocery prices.

Overall, the cost of groceries in August was up 0.6% over July’s prices, and the price of gas jumped 1.9% in just one month, according to NPR.

(alternet.org)

“He has solved almost every problem?

Which ones are those?

My wallet does not agree with the outright lie…..how about yours?

The inflation report was not the only troubling economic indicator, however.

The BLS also revealed that jobless claims in the US jumped to 263,000 last week, which was significantly higher than the 235,000 claims expected by economists. Joe Weisenthal, the co-host of the Bloomberg “Odd Lots” podcast, noted that this was the highest total for weekly jobless claims in nearly four years.

Long also flagged the worrying jobless claims number and predicted that it was just the start of a further downturn in the US economy.

“‘Cost cutting’ is back among CEOs and that is corporate speak for more layoffs,” she said. “It’s going to be a rough few months ahead as the tariffs impacts work their way through the economy. Americans will experience higher prices and (likely) more layoffs.”

(commondreams.org)

Now the Fed sees this rise in inflation and word is they will lower interest rates at their next meeting to try and stave off any thoughts of a recession.

But not to worry Donny has all this well in hand.

BULLOCKS!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Yet Another ‘Shutdown’ Two-Step

It seems every year the country has to go through this government shutdown BS….usually it is the GOP that is threatening the shutdown without their favorite spending cuts….after decades of silliness the Dems have now decided that the threat is such a good idea….

Centrist Democrats fear their party could blunder into a government shutdown this month as Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) are taking a hard line on the government funding package that needs to pass by Sept. 30.

Democrats broadly agree the looming expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act — combined with deep cuts to Medicaid that Republicans enacted through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — will hit millions of Americans with higher health care costs.

The senator said it’s “not clear” how voting against a short-term clean funding measure and forcing a government shutdown would give Democrats more leverage over Republicans on the looming expiration of the Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The senator argued the possibility that health care costs for millions of Americans could increase substantially in 2026 should be dealt with through the regular appropriations process, which would move forward if Democrats agree to short-term deal to fund the government through October or into November or December.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5499731-democrats-government-shutdown-threat/

Dems after the election of Donny promised to change things up with the way they handle their roll in government….and now as usual they have reverted back to the same tactics they have always had….react no original thought.

Then our Clueless Leader has called the Dems bluff….

Is a government shutdown imminent? President Donald Trump and the Senate’s top Republican said they don’t see a path to a bipartisan deal to fund the government, with 18 days left to make it happen.

The president and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., came out with slightly different messages  Friday, but they both would lead to the same result — a government shutdown.

Trump is telling Republicans they don’t need to work with Democrats to reach an agreement.

“Don’t even bother dealing with them. We will get it through, because the Republicans are sticking together for the first time in a long time,” the president said on Fox and Friends.

Republicans need at least seven Democrats in the Senate to get over the 60-vote threshold. Despite that, Trump wants Republicans to do it alone.

“If you gave them every dream, right now. Every dream that they want to give away money to this and that and then destroy the country; if you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,” Trump added.

https://san.com/cc/trump-says-gop-shouldnt-work-with-democrats-to-fund-government/

Good to see the dream of compromise/bi-partisanship is still alive and kicking (that is sarcasm)….

It is also more good news that His Majesty wants nothing but division that is how is still worthless ass will stay in the WH.

This whole ‘shutdown’ drama is nothing more than theater of the absurd and our politician play their parts well….not for the people but rather for their party.

I kicked the party line to the curb many years ago and maybe others should look and do the same….these parties are destroying this country and most are allowing it….they should be ashamed of themselves.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The ‘Dream’ Is Dead!

An article I recently read is what made me want to look deeper it this subject….

CNN data analyst Harry Enten crunched the numbers and discovered a large swathe of U.S. residents no longer believe in the American dream.

“America, we have a problem,” said Enten, describing a growing nation of economic pessimists.

“If you work hard, you’ll get ahead: that is the American dream,” said Enten. “[Respondents answering] ‘Never/Not true now’, in 2010 to 2011, 15 years ago, it was 51 percent who said it wasn’t true. Now look at this number! Whooo! Through the roof: 70 percent.”

https://www.alternet.org/american-voters-pessimism/

I have written a couple of times about the death of the American Dream….not too many agreed with me but I continue to believe that it has passed away.

The ‘American Dream’ Has Died

A new survey shows me that I am not as alone as I thought I was thinking the ‘Dream’ has died.

A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll paints a dim picture of Americans’ faith in upward mobility. Just 25% of respondents believe they have a decent shot at improving their standard of living—a record low since the survey began in 1987. More than three-quarters of those who responded to the poll, which the Independent notes was “fittingly published” on Labor Day, expect that the next generation will fare no better, signaling a widespread loss of confidence in the American dream.

Almost 70% of those polled now say the idea that hard work pays off “no longer holds true or never did,” the highest level of skepticism in more than a decade. The pessimism spans political and demographic lines. While Republicans are slightly less gloomy than Democrats—consistent with the tendency for the party out of power to hold a darker view—majorities across gender, age, education, and income levels express anxiety about their future prospects.

Despite recent improvements in how people rate the current economy, concerns linger. Inflation, job security, and the soaring cost of housing weigh heavily. Only 17% now view the United States as having the world’s best economy, down sharply from just a few years ago. Many respondents across income brackets report feeling economically fragile, even when their finances are solid on paper.

Since the pandemic, economic mood has soured, even as metrics like unemployment and the stock market suggest resilience. Economists suggest today’s unease may be rooted less in current conditions and more in uncertainty about the future. A similar question in a July poll by Quinnipiac University found that 50% of respondents were also souring on the American dream, per the Miami Herald.

What say you…..is the American Dream deceased?

Can it ever be revived?

Well can it?

How much more must the American people suffer before someone steps up and leads?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Things Are Getting Ugly

Between tariffs and sanctions the economy is suffering with Trumponomics……..the latest jobs report is one example but there are others….

We got a much better sense of what the American labor market is doing today. And the news was not good.

The economy added only 22,000 jobs last month, far fewer than economists had predicted, according to a new release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new data also shows that the economy gained slightly more jobs in July than we thought at the time, but that it actually lost 13,000 jobs in June — making that month the first since 2020 to see a true decline in U.S. employment.

The unemployment rate now stands at 4.3%, one tenth of a percent higher than it was last month. All in all, the American labor market has been frozen since President Trump declared “Liberation Day” and announced a bevy of new tariffs in April.

On the one hand, some aspects of that job loss shouldn’t be a surprise. As we’ve covered at Heatmap, the Trump administration has spent the past few months attacking the wind, solar, and electric vehicle industries. It has yanked subsidies from new electricity generation, rewritten rules on the fly, and waged an all-out regulatory war on offshore wind farms. Electricity costs are rising nationwide, constraining essentially all power-dependent industries except artificial intelligence.

https://heatmap.news/economy/jobs-report-manufacturing-trump

Remember the promise by Donny that manufacturing jobs would return top the US with his tariffs?

So far that has not been the case.

The U.S. manufacturing industry shed more workers in August despite policies from President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at bolstering the sector.

The United States lost 12,000 manufacturing jobs for the month, continuing a downward trend since its most recent peak in February 2023, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall, employers added a disappointing 22,000 jobs in August, signaling a slowdown in U.S. hiring.

It will take time to see how tariffs’ impact on the manufacturing labor force plays out. So far this year, the uncertainty around the new trade policies and consumer spending has prompted some businesses to slow hirings.

“There’s no good reason for manufacturing to be hiring right now, and there are a lot of good reasons for it to be taking it easy,” said Ron Hetrick, a senior economist at labor market analytics company Lightcast.

Manufacturing job loss isn’t exclusive to the Trump administration. Jobs in the industry – which slid to 12.7 million in August, or about 8% of total nonfarm employment – have dipped dramatically since their peak in 1979 when they accounted for roughly 22% of total employment. While there were gains made after the Great Recession, jobs began trending down again in early 2023.

That downward trend has continued into 2025, with the sector losing roughly 78,000 jobs over the year through August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2025/09/05/manufacturing-employment-decline-jobs-report-august/85945275007/

I guess the kneejerk reaction to stats that Donny did not appreciate and the firing of the head of the BLS is not going to make his ‘Save America Economy’ any better.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Donny Changes Presidents

During his first presidency Donny was all a tither over Andrew Jackson….I think because Jackson loved being a bully….and now in his second term Donny has a new idol, McKinley.

In his first term, President Trump’s favorite commander-in-chief, other than himself, was Andrew Jackson, the hatchet-faced, self-made populist who relished turning Washington upside down. Now he’s partial to the barrel-chested, unfailingly polite William McKinley, a champion of American expansionism as well as of tariffs, Trump’s favorite second-term policy. Trump’s shift, rather than merely swapping one infatuation for another, demonstrates how his mindset and priorities have evolved, the AP reports. The Republican president’s admiration for McKinley fits with his current politics, which are different from when Trump first took office in 2017. A key political target for Trump back then was the elites, which his administration predicted might crumble in the face of a Jackson-like working class uprising.

In his second inaugural address, Trump lauded McKinley as a “natural businessman” who “made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.” Trump used a Day 1 order to restore the name of North America’s tallest peak to Mount McKinley and he has repeatedly named-checked the 25th president more recently, while his weighty tariffs have left the world bracing for the kind of trade war not seen since the days of the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. The White House says the shift isn’t a departure from Trump’s first-term goals, but simply his leaning harder into new tools—in this case, tariffs—to achieve them.

“President Trump has never wavered from his commitment to putting working-class Americans above special interests, and his channeling of President McKinley’s tariffs agenda is indicative of how he is using every lever of executive power to deliver for the American people,” said spokesman Kush Desai. The president’s Jacksonian impulses aren’t all dormant. He imposed some first-term tariffs and now is shaking up Washington with his efforts to slash the federal workforce and stock the bureaucracy with loyalists. He’s also prioritized antagonizing “elites” at Ivy League universities and top law firms.

(Click for more, including the other side of McKinley’s tariffs that Trump doesn’t mention.)

He adores McKinley because basically of tariffs…..but McKinley mismanaged so many things during his tenure as leader of the ‘free world’….

It is true that the self-styled “tariff man”—his political opponents preferred the more derisive “Napoleon of protection”—was the biggest public face of mercantilism during America’s high-tariff era of 1870–1912. As a congressman, he wrote what came to be known as the “McKinley tariff” of 1890, and as president he signed another increase in 1897.

But a funny thing happened after the U.S. came out of the Panic (and subsequent four-year depression) of 1893: Goosed by sharp increases in domestic iron and copper production, Americans had too many goods chasing too few consumers. And McKinley himself began agitating to tear down some of those trade barriers

“What we produce beyond our domestic consumption must have a vent abroad,” he said in September 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. “The excess must be relieved through a foreign outlet, and we should sell everywhere we can, and buy wherever the buying will enlarge our sales and productions, and thereby make a greater demand for home labor. The period of exclusiveness is past,” he continued. “The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable….If perchance some of our tariffs are no longer needed, for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad?”

McKinley’s presidency was ended by an assassin’s bullet the very next day.

Even before his late-life pivot to freer trade, McKinley had long been a champion of reciprocity, i.e., the bilateral, mutually beneficial reduction of targeted, asymmetrical tariffs. Or, as he put it in his first inaugural address, “the opening up of new markets for the products of our country, by granting concessions to the products of other lands that we need and cannot produce ourselves, and which do not involve any loss of labor to our own people, but tend to increase their employment.”

https://reason.com/2025/04/06/trump-is-wrong-about-mckinleys-tariff-legacy/

Who will get the nod next year?

He picks the worse to emulate….but that is always expected…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Employment Numbers Look Good, Right?

WE always seeing the figures put out by the government on employment, jobs created, and so forth…..but are those numbers just a mask for what is really happening?

A low unemployment rate typically signals that an economy is generally healthy. The unemployment rate in the U.S. remained near a 50-year-low in April 2025 at 4.2% — plus, American employers added 177,000 jobs in April despite the uncertainty of Trump’s tariffs and trade wars.

This all sounds good, right? Not so fast.

The “true” rate of unemployment in April, according to the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), was 24.3%, up 0.03% from the previous month. LISEP’s True Rate of Unemployment (TRU) includes the unemployed, as well as workers who are employed but still struggling.

“We are facing a job market where nearly one-in-four workers are functionally unemployed, and current trends show little sign of improvement,” said LISEP Chair Gene Ludwig in a statement published on PR Newswire.

“The harsh reality is that far too many Americans are still struggling to make ends meet, and absent an influx of dependable, good-paying jobs, the economic opportunity gap will widen.”

That could help explain why, despite the supposedly healthy employment rate, consumer confidence in the American economy has been plunging.

So, why is there a 20-point difference between the LISEP and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment numbers? The BLS collects a massive amount of data on unemployment, but some of that data is excluded from the official unemployment rate.

For example, BLS found that 5.7 million people who aren’t employed do, in fact, want a job — but they weren’t counted as unemployed because “they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job,” according to BLS.

LISEP uses data compiled by BLS, but instead of simply measuring unemployment, LISEP measures what it calls the “functionally unemployed.” This is defined as the portion of the U.S. labor force that “does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.”

Its metrics capture not only unemployed workers, but also those stuck in poverty-wage jobs and those working part-time but can’t get full-time work. LISEP’s measurements aim to include these functionally unemployed Americans to provide a more complete picture of unemployment across the country, including the nuances that other economic indicators miss.

This, in turn, can help “provide policymakers and the public with a more transparent view of the economic situation of all Americans, particularly low- and middle-income households, compared with misleading headline statistics,” according to LISEP.

“Amid an already uncertain economic outlook, the rise in functional unemployment is a concerning development,” Ludwig said. “This uncertainty comes at a price, and unfortunately, the low- and middle-income wage earners ultimately end up paying the bill.”

Ludwig says the public would be “well served by a commitment from economic policymakers to adopt a stable course of action” based on real-world metrics.

(moneywise.com)

We also are hearing how well the economy is doing….but all that is smoke and mirrors as well….as any person can tell you that has to shop that their wallet does not see this ‘bright’ economy.

Just thought you might like to know….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gilded Age–Second Coming

We know how much I like history and what it can teach us about our future…..so without further ado….

Before we jump into today’s economics we need to step back and take a look at the first Gilded Age….

The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth and industrialization that lasted from the late 1870s until the early 1900s. It was characterized by extreme inequality; the wealthy, including the famous robber barons, experienced high levels of prosperity, while the working classes experienced extreme poverty and labor exploitation.

Key Takeaways

  • The Gilded Age was an era of American history that lasted from the late 1870s until the early 1900s. It was characterized by extreme wealth inequality and industrialization.
  • Major changes during the Gilded Age included the movement from agriculture to industry, shifts from rural to urban living, women’s entry into the labor force, and westward migration.
  • Immigration increased during the Gilded Age, while Black populations migrated north and west in pursuit of economic opportunity and land ownership.
  • The life-threatening working conditions and economic devastation of the working classes partly fueled the rapid industrialization and innovation of the Gilded Age.
  • The rise of investigative journalism, progressive ideologies, and organized labor eventually undermined the Gilded Age’s rigid class structures and exploitation.

https://www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-7692919

Does any of that sound familiar….the inequality, the working class suffers, the ‘Robber Barons’…..any of it?

“Trump’s golden age looks an awful lot like a new Gilded Age,” wrote Politico this month, reflecting on the second inauguration of the United States’ president, prominently attended by tech billionaires. The day after that inauguration, historian Beverly Gage “couldn’t stop thinking about the Gilded Age” and its “rapid technological change as well as stark inequality, corporate graft and violent clashes between workers and bosses”.

But what was the Gilded Age – and does the comparison hold up?

The term, which spans the 1870s–1890s, came from an 1873 novel by celebrated satirist Mark Twain, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day, co-written with journalist and neighbour Charles Dudley Warner. It meant a nation that glittered from its growth and the accumulation of economic power by the extremely wealthy. The title referenced Shakespeare’s King John, in which the Earl of Salisbury states, “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily […] is wasteful and ridiculous excess” (Act IV, scene 2).

Trump himself has cited this era as an aspiration. “We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said, days after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”

Experts on the era, however, say he is idealising “a time rife with government and business corruption, social turmoil and inequality”, and “dramatically overestimating” the role of tariffs.

“The most astonishing thing for historians is that nobody in the Gilded Age economy – except for the very rich – wanted to live in the Gilded Age economy,” said Richard White, emeritus professor of history at Stanford University.

early 1870s was full of gilded lilies – a period of wasteful excess, shady dealing in business, and political corruption.

The year 1872 saw a massive scandal over the railroads’ influence in politics, after “a sham construction company”, Crédit Mobilier, had been chartered to build the Union Pacific Railroad “by financing it with unmarketable bonds”.

Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts sold the shares at bargain rates to high-ranking House colleagues to secure political clout for the company. While most sold them quickly, representative James Brooks of New York (also a government director for Union Pacific Railroad) profited from a large block of shares.

Ames and Brooks were censured by the House in 1873 for using their political position for financial gain. The Crédit Mobilier Scandal, as it was called, became nationwide news.

The Gilded Age satirised such blatant pursuit of wealth. Its story centred around the members of the fictional Hawkins family, trying to get rich by selling their essentially worthless land in Tennessee under false pretences that misrepresented its value. The novel employs pathos as well as satire. An adopted daughter, Laura Hawkins, kills her married lover. She is tried and acquitted, but before her death, she feels guilty about her past behaviour.

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2010/03/Trump-presidency-compared-gilded-age

Our first Gilded Age was so bad it brought on the Progressive era…..we should be so lucky this time around.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Money Well Spent?

By now all have heard the news of the occupation of DC by Donny and his brand of crime fighting…..sad though that crime figures are down but that does not get in the way of this authoritarian d/bag to flex his sagging muscle.

More and more National Guard are being introduced to the streets of DC almost daily…..like his lame ass military parade is a huge waste of money and resources.

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC’s police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to “end vagrancy” by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.

But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and “getting rid of the slums” is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump’s effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.

According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.

She added that “the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years.”

According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.

Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump’s military deployment.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-national-guard-housing-cost

At every turn the GOP and its choice of power brokers prove they are no more a fiscal conservative than I am dishwasher at Friday’s.

More of Donny’s wasting money that so many accuse the Dems of doing….this what we get when personality means more than policies.

Now the story is that Donny and his band of idiots are setting sights on Chicago for the next location to piss away more cash….Baltimore is also in the sights.

The GOP continues to prove what a quivering mass of waste and dysfunction.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”