Category: Economics

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”

Veggies Are Next

First if was some stuff about Bird Flu and the price of eggs shot up by 50+%…..then Donny imposed his tariffs and everything became more and more expensive….first it was the prices for meat….

Of course I felt obligated to pass on what I had read about this rise….

Expensive Being A Meat Eater

So like any other normal person I decided to supplement my smaller meat portions with veggies…..now that is not going to happen….

Wholesale food prices rose 1.4% from June to July, with one big subsector leading the way: fresh and dry vegetables, which surged 38.9% in that same time period, per the AP. That’s the largest month-on-month spike for veggies since March 2022, as well as the biggest increase in a summer month since record-keeping for this data started after World War II, reports Axios, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The outlet notes that these wholesale stats could portend a jump in prices soon at the supermarket as well.

So how much does this “veggie-flation” have to do with the Trump administration’s ongoing global trade war? “Because we get most of that produce across the border, and they’re imports, the tariffs have a lot to do with that,” Phil Kafarakis, CEO of IFMA The Food Away From Home Association, tells Axios. “Over a third of our vegetables are imported,” agrees Michigan State University food economist David Ortega, who tells Marketplace that items like tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, and asparagus are especially susceptible to higher tariffs.

Kafarakis, meanwhile, tells Axios that things could even get worse in the fall, when harvest season begins, with a possible decline in farm workers to gather that produce amid Trump’s accompanying immigration crackdown. “Getting into October, the quality and then the capacity of what we’re able to bring in is going to be a real, real problem,” he notes. “Prices will soar to keep demand in check.”

I guess that means if I want to get more healthy food I will be eating more fruit….that is wrong as well for a lot of our fruit comes through import and that means higher prices for this as well….

Since produce is getting more expensive does that mean vegans will be paying through nose more so than us god awful meat eaters?

Thoughts?

Finally a short economics lesson…..just a look at how much we spend on groceries….

According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) July 2025 food plans, a moderate-to-liberal-cost grocery plan for a single adult ranges from roughly $300 to $450 per month, depending on age and gender. For a family of four, following a moderate-cost USDA food plan, monthly grocery spending would rise to around $1,337.60, depending on the ages of the children — a 3.4% increase from $1,293 in the same month in 2023. Even the low-cost (thrifty) plan would cost a family of four $994 a month.

Using the USDA’s food plan as a guide, a single adult, earning the national median monthly income of $5,175, should plan on spending roughly 7-9% of their income on groceries. Meanwhile a family of four earning the national median household income, which was $80,610 via the Census Bureau’s 2024 report, should plan on spending as much as 20% of their income on food every month. However, while these USDA figures offer a structured benchmark, they’re ultimately falling short of what most people are actually spending. The BLS has found that the average American is spending $504 on groceries monthly, but the USDA suggests that a single adult should be spending $400 instead — a 22% difference. Even worse, this is before factoring in things like regional price differences, dietary needs, bad grocery shopping strategies, and food waste.

Read More: https://www.moneydigest.com/1938236/how-much-money-average-american-spends-on-groceries-per-month/

And this is far from over…..who would have thought that in this land of abundance eating could become a luxury?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Financial Insecurity

If one actually shops then they will have noticed that everything is going up from eggs to autos…..and most Americans see their paycheck worth less and less with each passing check…..

The Century Foundation commissioned a survey last month with polling firm Morning Consult and found that roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Trump’s policies are to blame for their current financial struggles. However, the report also emphasized that Americans’ “financial insecurity is widespread and runs deep,” and that their concerns stretch back well before Trump’s second term.

“More than 4 in 5 Americans (83%) are concerned about the price of groceries, with nearly half (46%) saying they are very concerned,” writes the Century Foundation. “Nearly half (47%) of Americans are worried about their current ability to pay their rent or mortgage. And nearly two-thirds (64%) worry about their ability to pay an unexpected medical expense if one should arise. Nearly half of all Americans (48%) believe they would have difficulty paying an unexpected $500 bill without borrowing.”

These anxieties were particularly strong among younger Generation Z voters, as well as among Black and Latino voters across all age demographics.

Even more troubling, the survey found that Americans are increasingly using financially risky strategies to keep up with paying their bills.

“More than a third of Americans are turning to high-cost debt to cover their bills,” writes the Century Foundation. “Significant shares have also had to turn to credit cards (37%) or take on debt (29%) to afford the bills. This is consistent with the larger trends in use of credit products, like the notable shift in use of ‘buy now, pay later’ products for groceries. The rates of families using credit card debt to cover expenses is all the more concerning as credit card delinquencies continue to rise.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-economy-poll

+++This next report should send those creepy GOPers into a panic attack for after decades of attempting to make actual financial security through politics as something evil the feelings are changing+++

If there is one thing that Republicans and Democratic consultants can agree on, it is that the working class of America loves racism and sexism and hates socialism. Alas, not only does this ignore the rather glaring fact that people of color make up 45 percent of the working class (many of whom even live right here in the Midwest) and that women make up 47 percent, but it turns out that large swaths of this group are quite fond of the kind of left-wing economic policies we have long been told would “scare them off.”

In fact, a recent study from Center for Working‑Class Politics and Jacobin has found that they are even more fond of some of them than non-working class people who consider themselves to be “egalitarians.”

ia Jacobin:

To answer these questions, we analyzed 128 public-opinion questions from three of the most trusted and comprehensive surveys in US political science: the American National Election Studies (ANES), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Cooperative Election Study (CES). Our data spans from 1960 to 2022, allowing us to track long-term shifts in working-class attitudes across six issue domains: immigration, civil rights, social norms, environmental policy, and two categories of economic policy — predistribution (like wages and job protections) and redistribution (like taxes and social programs).

The results found that there is majority support among the working class for import limits to protect jobs, new limits on imports, increasing the federal minimum wage, belief that the government should do more, labor unions, a jobs guarantee, lower drug prices, increasing state transportation spending, and workers on boards of directors.

As far as redistributive policies go, majorities support increasing spending on Social Security, the poor, health care, social services and public education, as well as expanding Medicare, higher taxes for the rich, a millionaire tax, and paid parental leave.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/shocking-working-class-actually-quite

There is only so much screwing the working class can take before their suppressed attitudes come to the forefront.

We will see if this translates into policy and changes in the next couple of elections.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

China In The Crosshairs

Donny has been rabid about the tariffs and sanctions he has placed on China some go as high as 125%…..and then out of the blue a pause to give China time to do whatever it is they think it will do.

Is this competition with China a winning strategy or is it just BS from a cluttered mind?

China’s economy is already one-third larger than the U.S. economy and growing far more rapidly. This was true before Donald Trump took office, but the growth gap has been even larger in the first six months of this year.

China’s economy has been growing at more than a 5.0 percent annual rate. Meanwhile the US economy grew at just a 1.2 percent annual rate. Put in dollar terms, China’s economy has grown by roughly $1 trillion in the last six months, while the US economy has grown by just $180 billion.

This comparison doesn’t really mean much to any of us in our daily lives. People care about whether they have jobs, rising wages, and living standards. Things don’t look great on the wages and living standards front either, but I’ll leave that one for now.

The point here is that if we envision ourselves in a Cold War competition with China, we’re losing badly. I know that China’s growth statistics must always be viewed with skepticism (that may be true here soon as well), but there is little doubt that over long period of times they are pretty much on the mark.

Over the last half century China has gone from Sub-Saharan Africa living standards to upper middle-income living standards. This means that even if the 5.0 percent growth reported for the first half of the year may not be exactly right, it is likely in the ballpark.

So, we shouldn’t be like Donald Trump and say we can ignore the numbers. We are behind China and falling further behind. Those are the facts that the New Cold Warriors need to recognize.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/11/in-trumps-competition-with-china-china-is-winning/

Will all these half-ass policies actually make China greater?  After all we are having a mini Cold War with China in and around the South China Sea……

Two certainties have emerged after seven months of Donald Trump’s control of America’s national security policy. First of all, there is no comprehensive national security policy and no likely candidate in the administration for formulating and managing a comprehensive policy. Second, the greatest challenge in the national security arena is China—the most important bilateral policy in the entire global arena—and the Trump administration is doing everything it can—whether intentional or not—to make China great and to worsen America’s standing vis-a-vis China. The dumbing down of the United States continues under Trump, and China’s standing in the global community is becoming stronger.

Over the past 75 years, China has rarely relied on the use of military power—in Korea in the 1950s to stop the advance of U.S. forces, and in 1979 to “teach the Vietnamese a lesson,” which didn’t go well for Chinese forces. Conversely, the United States has relied on the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to pursue wars that were neither winnable nor affordable (Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq), and to use covert action unsuccessfully in overthrowing democratic governments in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile.

U.S. military engagements that were designed to last weeks and months turned into decades of military engagement and occupation. Nearly every administration claimed it was not engaged in nation-building, but hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted in doing exactly that—nation-building. And, of course, the ridiculous absurdity of the Iraq War that was going to introduce democracy as a model for the entire Arab world. No strategic purpose was served by any of these interventions. And apparently no lessons were learned.

Meanwhile, China has transitioned from one of the poorest nations in the world to the second-largest economy with nuclear-armed forces growing at a record pace. Over the past 40 years, China has had the world’s fastest-growing economy with annual growth rates that often exceeded 10% a year. China’s economy grew over five percent in the first half of this year; the U.S. economy expanded by one percent. Meanwhile, U.S. tariff policy is losing friends around the world.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/08/08/trumps-policies-will-make-china-great-again/

The only people that are suffering the consequences of this competition are the consumers…..when will that be accounted for?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tariffs–Blowing Smoke

Since January there has been daily updates on the tariffs that Donny has imposed on the world….it is a Duncan yo-yo….up and down….a pause and then strong condemnation and then another pause….I see China got another pause in tariffs….where are all those countries scrambling to do a deal?

To me it is more about stock manipulation and the markets than it is about punishing whoever has offended Little Donny….

But you decide….

Donald Trump’s words and actions rarely align perfectly. If you watch carefully, what he doesn’t say can be just as telling as what he does.

“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods,” he told the nation ahead of his re-election. The US president declared that 2 April would “forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn”, only to pause tariffs a week later.

He promised peace in Ukraine on day one of his presidency, only to later clarify this was “said in jest”; and he has claimed very few people can beat him at golf, only for footage from Scotland to raise questions over just how honest that round might be.

As a real estate mogul, reality TV star and political campaigner, Trump learned to bend narrative to his will, even if it meant straying from reality.

As president, this often leaves a gap between what he says and what he does. In many cases, the administration’s actions are more important to follow than the firehose of words.

If you were, say, a US business buying coffee from Brazil, you might have rushed to import it last week after Trump insisted 1 August was the cast-iron deadline for new tariffs. “It stands strong, and will not be extended,” he wrote on Wednesday – hours before signing an executive order that said new steep tariffs on the country would come into force on 8 August, after all.

And if you’re a US consumer, you might reasonably ask how inflation can be “dead”, as the White House has claimed, if you’re still shelling out more on groceries each month.

The president has an awful lot to say about tariffs. They will, he argues, raise “trillions” of dollars for the US federal government; eliminate trade deficits with other countries; and even punish Brazil for putting his ally the former president Jair Bolsonaro on trial for allegedly seeking to seize power after losing the 2022 presidential election. The list goes on.

But what about what the president doesn’t say?

And if you’re a US consumer, you might reasonably ask how inflation can be “dead”, as the White House has claimed, if you’re still shelling out more on groceries each month.

The president has an awful lot to say about tariffs. They will, he argues, raise “trillions” of dollars for the US federal government; eliminate trade deficits with other countries; and even punish Brazil for putting his ally the former president Jair Bolsonaro on trial for allegedly seeking to seize power after losing the 2022 presidential election. The list goes on.

But what about what the president doesn’t say?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/05/donald-trump-tariffs

Donny has struck a few trade deals….nothing like what was promised but give him credit for the deals he has concluded….like with Japn and the UK….

By its own reckoning, the Trump administration has now inked “the largest trade deal in American history”—twice. On July 22, it announced a deal with Japan, with the promise of $550 billion in direct investment in the United States. Shortly after came the European Union trade deal, which the administration hailed as “historic structural reforms.”

All this fanfare over record-breaking trade deals brings to mind the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which, in its time, was on track to be the globe’s largest free trade pact before President Donald Trump abandoned it in 2017. TPP partners represented 40 percent of all U.S. trade, and unlike today’s skeletal agreements, we had the details. In fact, we had 30 chapters of them, covering everything from intellectual property to tariffs to e-commerce.

In contrast, the Japan deal that Trump claims to have struck is more puzzle than promise. The White House fact sheet on the new deal claims, “Japan will invest $550 billion directed by the United States to rebuild and expand core American industries,” and that 90 percent of the return from investment would go to the United States. However, this language veers in a different direction from the Japanese cabinet release, which says “Japan will enable government-affiliated financial institutions to provide up to $550 billion in capital contributions, loans, and loan guarantees.” Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Brad Setser has called the investment pledge “vaporware.”

The E.U. deal is, if anything, even thinner on details, with European negotiators rushing to clarify it was only a preliminary framework—political, provisional, and definitely not legally binding.

It didn’t have to be this way. The Trump administration claims its tariffs are drawing countries to the table for tough negotiations. Yet in 2016, TPP partners were already there, ready to sign an agreement that closely reflected U.S. trade standards and practices, having overcome significant domestic hurdles. The TPP’s multilateral negotiating framework actually provided an efficient mechanism for participating countries to modernize their existing bilateral free trade agreements, and it augmented less comprehensive pacts like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. agreement (KORUS).

https://reason.com/2025/08/07/the-art-of-the-empty-trade-deal/

It is all smoke and mirrors and the faithful eat it up as somehow a breakthrough in trade….

So far I have not seen the ‘breakthrough’…..yes these sanctions has brought in some cash but at what price?

You as the consumer is paying the price….can you get that through that tiny mind?

After 6+ months the only thing he has accomplished was stealing more of your hard earned cash….congrats!  You asked for it, you got it!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Losing My Religion

Nope not some tribute to a song by R.E.M.

By ‘religion’ I mean democracy because to some of us democracy is a religion and it needs preserving and helped to thrive…..and it appears to be diminishing almost daily.

For decades there has been a slow destruction of our beloved democracy and since the early 90s that destruction has sped up until we arrive at today and the total disregard of our democracy by some.

The culprits are those oligarchs, the uber-wealthy, that are using their wallets to secure influence and drain the life out of democracy.

It doesn’t take a conspiracy to dismantle democracy — just concentrated wealth and time.

Across the globe, but especially in the United States, the ultra-wealthy have learned to bend democratic institutions not through revolution or coups d’état, but through slow but determined erosion. They don’t storm the halls of power; they sponsor those halls, sue them if they resist, and slowly discredit them if they persist. They present themselves to the public and a pliant media as hardnosed realists and pragmatists — people who know how to get things done – rational actors disillusioned with what they denounce as ‘the inefficiencies of self-rule.’ But what they’re really doing is waging a cold and relentless war on the very machinery of democratic life.

The corrosion starts subtly: A billionaire funds a lawsuit, quietly buys a newspaper, or drops millions into a political race. It initially appears to be wholesome participation (Bezos saving journalism by giving it room to breathe) — civic engagement by successful individuals. But with the benefit of time, the scale and intent reveal something else.

When Peter Thiel bankrolled the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media, he wasn’t just seeking justice for a perceived personal slight. He was sending a clear message: If you cross a billionaire, we will destroy you — and we won’t need to win an argument to do it. You will not be debated; you will be swiftly liquidated.

The legal system, which in theory protects the weak from the powerful, is in practice yet another arena where wealth sets the rules. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP suits) have become the favorite tool of oligarchs to intimidate journalists, whistleblowers, and activists into silence. The goal isn’t to win in court; it is to bleed critics dry with legal fees and drag them through years of debilitating litigation. In a democracy, speech should be protected; in an oligarchy, it is priced and, in that way, snuffed out.

The media, too, has been captured — not in a dramatic coup, but through purchase after purchase.

Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling empire has normalized the idea that facts are pliable, that narratives are weapons, and that partisanship isn’t a danger but a business model. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) is a more recent version of the same impulse: Control the flow of information, and you control what people believe is real. Democracy depends on shared reality, while plutocracy, in sharp contrast, thrives and prospers in the fog.

https://thefulcrum.us/ethics-leadership/billionaire-oligarchy

The destruction is nearing completion….the tenets by which this great nation was founded are being chipped away…..what will you do to preserve the system we love?

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

He Lowered Drug Prices By 1500%

I am an old fart and I have lots of meds that are not always cheap….especially cancer drugs but not to worry Dear Lovable Donny has lowered drug prices by 1500%.

Are you reading this?

Seriously?  1500%

President Donald Trump bragged on Sunday that he had lowered drug prices by up to 1500 percent—an arithmetical absurdity, even by his standards.

Trump floated the impossible figure just days after he fired a top government statistics official over numbers he didn’t like.

Trump told reporters in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that his administration had brought about a “tremendous drop in drug prices.”

“You know, we’ve cut drug prices by 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 percent,” Trump said. “I don’t mean 50 percent, I mean 14, 1500 percent.”

He added, “We want the same prices Europe gets, we want the same prices other country gets.”

“So we’ll be dropping drug prices,” he said, before throwing out another confusing set of figures. “It’ll start over the next two to three months. By 1200, 1300, and even 1400 percent. And 500 percent.”

Reducing the price of something by more than 100 percent would mean that not only does it become free—the consumer would be getting paid to take the product.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-hes-lowered-drug-prices-by-1500-after-firing-stats-boss/

My degrees are not in math or economics but a savings of 100% would mean my meds would be free….so far my wallet does not see the 1500% savings….how about yours?

This absurdity goes unnoticed by his semi-literate supports….what does it take for these mindless dipshits to realize how bad they are being screwed by this self-absorbed idiot?

Just wondering!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All That Expensive Food

I do not know about you but I have been watching my food budget get chipped away by policies from DC and the greed of those god awful middle men…..

I thought I was just being paranoid but apparently I am not alone….

The vast majority of US adults are at least somewhat stressed about the cost of groceries, a new poll finds, as prices continue to rise and concerns about the impact of President Trump’s tariffs remain widespread. About half of all Americans say the cost of groceries is a “major” source of stress in their life right now, while 33% say it’s a “minor” source of stress, according to the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Only 14% say it’s not a source of stress, underscoring the pervasive anxiety most Americans continue to feel about the cost of everyday essentials, the AP reports.

  • The worry affects young and old alike. Groceries are one of the most far-reaching financial stressors, affecting the young and old alike, the poll finds. While Americans over age 60 are less likely than younger people to feel major financial anxiety about housing, their savings, child care, or credit card debt, they are just as worried about the cost of groceries.
  • Even higher-income households are stressed. According to the poll, 64% of the lowest-income Americans—those who have a household income of less than $30,000 a year—say the cost of groceries is a “major” stressor. That’s compared with about 4 in 10 Americans who have a household income of $100,000 or more. But even within that higher-income group, only about 2 in 10 say grocery costs aren’t a worry at all.
  • Other worries weigh heaviest on younger people. Other financial stressors—like the cost of housing or the amount of money in their bank accounts—are also broadly felt, but they weigh more heavily on younger Americans, who are less likely than older adults to have significant savings or own property. About half of US adults say housing is a “major” source of stress, according to the poll.
  • “Buy now, pay later.” The survey also found that about 3 in 10 Americans overall, and 4 in 10 under age 45, say they’ve used what are known as “buy now, pay later” services when spending on entertainment or restaurant meals or when paying for essentials like groceries or medical care. An increasing share of those customers are having trouble repaying their loans, according to recent disclosures from the lenders.
  • Some groups are more stressed than others. Women are more likely than men to report high levels of stress about their income, savings, the cost of groceries, and the cost of health care, the poll found. Hispanic adults are also particularly concerned about housing costs and both credit card and student debt. About two-thirds of Hispanic adults say the cost of housing is a “major” source of stress, compared with about half of Black adults and about 4 in 10 white adults.
  • Esther Bland, 78, who lives in Buckley, Washington, says groceries are a “minor” source of stress—but only because her local food banks fill the gap. Bland relies on her Social Security and disability payments each month to cover her rent and other expenses—such as veterinary care for her dogs—in retirement. “I have no savings,” she says. “I’m not sure what’s going on politically when it comes to the food banks, but if I lost that, groceries would absolutely be a major source of stress.” Bland’s monthly income mainly goes toward her electric, water, and cable bills, she said, as well as care of her dogs and other household needs. “Soap, paper towels, toilet paper. I buy gas at Costco, but we haven’t seen $3 a gallon here in a long time,” she says. “I stay home a lot. I only put about 50 miles on my car a week.”

Just keep an eye on the trends….

Many Americans have been struggling with the price of groceries since the pandemic. In fact, the U.S. Economic Research Service reported a 23.6% increase in food prices from 2020 to 2024. This is higher than overall inflation, which was at 21.2% during this period (and which was already near a record high).

Surging prices on staples like eggs hit especially hard because, while it is possible to try to trim your grocery budget, there’s only so much you can do to cut back on essentials.

Unfortunately, things are not likely to get better any time soon. In fact, things are very likely going to get worse. That’s because tariffs are scheduled to go into effect on almost all U.S. trading partners. These tariffs were originally slated for August 1, but have now been pushed back to August 7.

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods, which are inevitably passed on to consumers. If there are higher import duties due on the food you eat, you are going to pay more for it. In fact, you are going to pay significantly more for many kinds of foods because it’s not that easy to just switch to sourcing certain items in the U.S.

https://www.thestreet.com/retail/tariffs-cause-august-grocery-price-surge-five-foods-hit-hardest

At first I thought my concern was from extreme dislike for this idiot that we put in the White House….but a trip to the market changed all that….the dislike has now become hate.

People may relish the idea of Donny’s programs of arresting those 7 year old hardened criminals and overlook they are being taking to the cleaners by other policies…..maybe that is the cost of ethnic hatred.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tariffs And Prices

There is a new ‘pause’ on tariffs and that should stabilize prices but it does not seem to be doing that at all….

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick bragged about the “amazing” revenue that the Trump administration’s tariffs are delivering to the U.S. Treasury.

“The tariff revenues are amazing: $700 billion a year,” Lutnick told Shannon Bream. “That’s just net new money the government never had before. You take that for 10 years, that’s $7 trillion.”

Ignore, if you can, the still bizarre (but increasingly common) sight of a Republican executive official bragging about how much money the federal government has extracted from the economy. Similarly, try to ignore Lutnick’s questionable calculation of how much revenue the tariffs will generate—the best estimates right now suggest they will generate between $2.5 trillion and $2.7 trillion over the next decade, not the $7 trillion that Lutnick claims. (But those estimates are tricky things, given the lack of certainty surrounding all of this.)

Focus instead on the obvious question that Lutnick’s claim ought to bring to mind: Where, exactly, is all that “new money” coming from?

All taxes are paid by someone, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs are no exception to that rule. The question of who pays and in what amounts is likely to become even more of a focal point in the coming days and weeks, as the White House follows through on its threat to hit imports from dozens of countries with higher tariffs starting on August 1.  (The good news is that this ‘pause’ may keep prices from rising too much)

https://reason.com/2025/07/29/yes-tariffs-are-raising-prices/

So if the tariffs are on old why are prices still rising?

There is a good reason why.

The effects of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are winding their way through the American economy, and a new piece of analysis claims that corporate America is using them as “cover” to further jack up prices.

Progressive advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative issued a new report on Tuesday that uses corporate executives’ own words to show how many firms are taking advantage of the tariff situation by using it as an all-purpose justification for price increases. The report found many of these executives’ admissions through quarterly earnings calls in which they discussed plans to increase costs even if their inputs were not being significantly affected by the tariffs.

Among others, the report cited a statement made earlier this year by Aaron Jagdfeld, the CEO of power generation products manufacturer Generac Power Systems, who said on an earnings call that “even if we have metals that weren’t impacted directly by tariffs, the indirect effect of tariffs is that it gives steel producers and the mills and other fabricators… great cover for increased pricing in some cases.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-tariffs-corporate-greed

True to their greed corporations are using tariffs to raise prices and then when tariffs hit (if ever) then they should use the tariffs as cover for their greed and the rise in prices which will prove many Americans out of markets like housing, food, etc.

Is this what the mentally challenged voted for last year?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tariffs: The Big Day Has Arrived

Today is 01 August and the pause of Donny’s yo-yo economics of tariffs is ended and the gas pedal of economic war will be pushed.

Well maybe not so fast…right on cue Donny has hit the brakes….yet again….

Hours before the midnight deadline he imposed on himself, President Trump signed a new executive order Thursday evening imposing tariffs on dozens of US trading partners. The plan confirms some previously announced provisions while changing other parts, including the deadline: The tariffs apparently take effect at 12:01am Aug. 7, the New York Times reports, instead of Aug. 1. The rates seem to go as high as 50% on imports from nations Trump wants to punish or did not make enough concessions to the US.

Among the highest adjusted reciprocal tariffs, per CNN, are: Syria, 41%; Laos and Myanmar, 40%; Switzerland, 39%; Iraq and Serbia, 35%; Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Libya, and South Africa, 30%. Canada goes from 25% to 35% in theory; goods trading under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement are exempt, per the Times. That covers most Canadian exports at the moment, economist said. A senior administration official told CNN that talks with Canada over fentanyl and tariffs haven’t been as constructive as the negotiations with Mexico, which was granted a 90-day reprieve on higher tariffs on Thursday. The increase on Canadian imports still goes into effect on Friday, per CNBC.

The order applies to 68 countries and the 27-member European Union, per the AP. Countries not named in the new order will face a baseline 10% tariff. Many countries that Trump listed in his Liberation Day reciprocal tariffs have settled in at 15% or 20%. Some of the tariff levels reflect frameworks already reached with trading partners, such as the UK and European Union. “The president has essentially reordered global trade,” an administration official told reporters.

This should inject some joy into the markets (again)….on the upside consumer prices should not rise too much during this lull.

Did Donny decide to extend the deadline because the Fed ignored his desire and did not raise points?

As long as we are on tariffs…..I have never thought this was a good idea….to me it was just a cope out to manipulate market prices…..but just how ‘legal’ are these exorbitant Tariffs?

A federal appeals court showed clear doubts Thursday about the Trump administration’s claim to sweeping tariff powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—a law that, notably, never mentions tariffs. The Justice Department contends President Trump can use the statute to levy broad new taxes on imports, but judges pushed back, questioning whether the law’s actual language supports that authority, CNBC reports. Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate admitted that “no president has ever read IEEPA this way” but said Trump’s actions are lawful.

The 11-judge US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit panel drilled into the statute’s intent, with one judge noting that the IEEPA mentions foreign exchange and currency but not tariffs. “There’s an old expression in the law, ‘noscitur a sociis’: ‘you know it by its friends,'” the judge said. “Tariffs seems to have no friends in that statute. So, why?”

  • The 1977 law gives the president the power to regulate commerce in times of war or national emergency. Judges questioned Trump’s claim that trade deficits are a national emergency that tariffs can address, the AP reports. “If the president says there’s a problem with our military readiness, and he puts a 20% tax on coffee, that doesn’t seem to necessarily deal with (it),” Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore said.
  • Neal Katyal, representing opponents of Trump’s tariffs, argued the administration’s reading of the law would let the president “do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, so long as he declares an emergency”—a level of executive power he called “breathtaking” and unprecedented in American history.
  • A lower court struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs in May, but the Federal Circuit Appeals Court paused that ruling, keeping the tariffs in place as the legal fight continues. The case—VOS Selections v. Trump—could become a landmark test of the president’s authority on trade, potentially shaping the fate of several similar lawsuits. The plaintiffs argue that Trump has usurped Congress’ authority to set tariffs, CNBC reports.
  • Trump, for his part, has cast the case as crucial for his trade agenda and national security, warning in a Truth Social post Thursday that without the power to impose retaliatory tariffs, “our Country … would be ‘DEAD,’ WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS.”
  • A ruling in the case isn’t expected immediately, but whatever the court decides, the case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court, the New York Times reports.

SCOTUS?  That is where the Constitution and laws go to die.

Sad that this nation has no one but political hacks that will protect the system….and we all know how pathetic these d/bags are on the Court.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”