“Trade talks” where the U.S. cannot even start to talk about trade because their are no goals, no trusted staff, and no internal administration plan. It’s chaos-monkey non-“policy” in action: Scott...
There can't be negotiations on trade because there's no government to represent the United States. Instead, America has a lifelong cheat and criminal associate of gangsters pretending to be president in some kind of virtual reality program, with a coterie of cronies and billionaires out to make more money for themselves. There is no public policy.
Instead, there is a crank, Peter Navarro, feeding the charlatan's delusions that he can extract massive concessions, bring back manufacturing to America, and be celebrated ever after. That's only one part of it. The other, more important part, is the overwhelming greed which drives Donald Trump - import tariffs are only another way to extort money through tariff reductions and exemptions which he can grant if the price is right.
America fell off a cliff in November 2024. It's run by a weird criminal consortium of domestic and foreign interests, including billionaires such as Musk (and yes, Bessent and Lutnick) along with Putin and Netanyahu and bin Salman through Trump. The judiciary and legislature have abdicated their authority. This is an anarchy - and not one on auto-pilot. America is being driven into the ground, it's society is being violently split, its laws are trampled, and its reputation is in tatters. This is not the best government money can buy - it's the worst.
There really are substantial discussions about the shape of the Earth within geodesy, an arcane field that becomes important when you're concerned about things like tracking satellites very, very accurately. This is just one of *many* areas where the government needs need to maintain world-class expertise if American companies don't want to fall behind their counterparts in Europe and Asia. It's amazing to me that the plutocrats who back Trump don't realize how much his chaos monkey antics will harm their long-term interests.
Well, Trump could clear the air by just undoing everything done in 2025, rescind the tariff increases, reinstate everyone fired, unfreeze the grants to Universities, bring back all the poor souls shipped to El Salvador. A wholesale turnover of the Cabinet will take longer.
The Prez cares about only two things: 1) signing lots of Executive Orders for the camera, and 2) playing golf as much as possible. Maybe a tax bill gets through Congress this year, but the longer the charade about being "budget neutral" goes on, the more difficult it will be to fool the American public.
Very little (if anything) appears in the press which explains that Trump’s tariff “deals” expire if not ratified by Congress. Every news story should succinctly restate the points that Professor DeLong makes - there are no actual agreements, no other country trusts us to abide by any agreement, there are no concrete objectives and any agreement is meaningless without Congressional approval. This is yet another example of the press failing to inform the public about what is really happening. The best sources of information on this and other economic topics come from Professors DeLong, Krugman and Roach.
Do not understand “trade talks” in regards to the Japanese trade representatives. Is not the main job to negotiate tariffs on products we already import, not for the Japanese to sell us more stuff?
The days are long past when we should let other countries to sell us any number of products that they want to in order to boost their manufacturing development at the expense of ours.
These countries do not realize that our citizens do not have as much to contribute to their economies as we used to.
Our citizens may have less income than the countries that sell us manufactured products.
I don’t want to name the countries I have had bad experiences with their products, and that they think they can sell us anything and treat us like crap. Friends and family members have had similar experiences.
Some countries are treating us badly as tourists. Spain I would not go to, they really do hate us. There may be more countries that like to treat us badly. I would not travel to foreign countries right now.
Is there no other way to help countries other than buy their manufactured products? Develop their service economy? Sell their knowledge instead of products?
One wonders if Trump’s entire goal is to seize up the world economy. The first time was in 2020 with the global shutdown; now it’s this. There will be consequences, positive and negative, but I can only imagine.
How did this Bessent guy end up being such a clown? I mean, I realize he voluntarily moved to SC as a gay man, so quite a bit is loose in his skull. But still? What self-respecting person hitches themself to THIS flaming scow?
Prof. DeLong,
There can't be negotiations on trade because there's no government to represent the United States. Instead, America has a lifelong cheat and criminal associate of gangsters pretending to be president in some kind of virtual reality program, with a coterie of cronies and billionaires out to make more money for themselves. There is no public policy.
Instead, there is a crank, Peter Navarro, feeding the charlatan's delusions that he can extract massive concessions, bring back manufacturing to America, and be celebrated ever after. That's only one part of it. The other, more important part, is the overwhelming greed which drives Donald Trump - import tariffs are only another way to extort money through tariff reductions and exemptions which he can grant if the price is right.
America fell off a cliff in November 2024. It's run by a weird criminal consortium of domestic and foreign interests, including billionaires such as Musk (and yes, Bessent and Lutnick) along with Putin and Netanyahu and bin Salman through Trump. The judiciary and legislature have abdicated their authority. This is an anarchy - and not one on auto-pilot. America is being driven into the ground, it's society is being violently split, its laws are trampled, and its reputation is in tatters. This is not the best government money can buy - it's the worst.
apropos of nothing I read a few NY Times from October 1929
The Friday Oct 18, 1929 was most interesting (if I could upload images here I would, here's the best I can do)
https://bsky.app/profile/capemaydave.bsky.social/post/3lnutqu76wc26
What the administration wants: Japan to buy a billion in trumpf coin.
There really are substantial discussions about the shape of the Earth within geodesy, an arcane field that becomes important when you're concerned about things like tracking satellites very, very accurately. This is just one of *many* areas where the government needs need to maintain world-class expertise if American companies don't want to fall behind their counterparts in Europe and Asia. It's amazing to me that the plutocrats who back Trump don't realize how much his chaos monkey antics will harm their long-term interests.
And although reality has turned out much worse than the campaign, it should have been clear that Trump was an even worse choice than Harris
Is Bloomberg "sane-washing" the negotiations? Or just acting as stenographers for the administration?
Has the administration negotiated with any countries at all, or just companies begging for cutouts?
Is our "short-term pain for long-term gain" going to be "short-term pain and long-term even greater pain"?
Sounds a bit like the T May’s during HMG’s Brexit negos It ended as a ttl success for the UK & NI
They are "concepts" of proposals!!!
Well, Trump could clear the air by just undoing everything done in 2025, rescind the tariff increases, reinstate everyone fired, unfreeze the grants to Universities, bring back all the poor souls shipped to El Salvador. A wholesale turnover of the Cabinet will take longer.
The Prez cares about only two things: 1) signing lots of Executive Orders for the camera, and 2) playing golf as much as possible. Maybe a tax bill gets through Congress this year, but the longer the charade about being "budget neutral" goes on, the more difficult it will be to fool the American public.
He should spend 100% of his time on golf.
Very little (if anything) appears in the press which explains that Trump’s tariff “deals” expire if not ratified by Congress. Every news story should succinctly restate the points that Professor DeLong makes - there are no actual agreements, no other country trusts us to abide by any agreement, there are no concrete objectives and any agreement is meaningless without Congressional approval. This is yet another example of the press failing to inform the public about what is really happening. The best sources of information on this and other economic topics come from Professors DeLong, Krugman and Roach.
Amen!
Do not understand “trade talks” in regards to the Japanese trade representatives. Is not the main job to negotiate tariffs on products we already import, not for the Japanese to sell us more stuff?
The days are long past when we should let other countries to sell us any number of products that they want to in order to boost their manufacturing development at the expense of ours.
These countries do not realize that our citizens do not have as much to contribute to their economies as we used to.
Our citizens may have less income than the countries that sell us manufactured products.
I don’t want to name the countries I have had bad experiences with their products, and that they think they can sell us anything and treat us like crap. Friends and family members have had similar experiences.
Some countries are treating us badly as tourists. Spain I would not go to, they really do hate us. There may be more countries that like to treat us badly. I would not travel to foreign countries right now.
Is there no other way to help countries other than buy their manufactured products? Develop their service economy? Sell their knowledge instead of products?
One wonders if Trump’s entire goal is to seize up the world economy. The first time was in 2020 with the global shutdown; now it’s this. There will be consequences, positive and negative, but I can only imagine.
How did this Bessent guy end up being such a clown? I mean, I realize he voluntarily moved to SC as a gay man, so quite a bit is loose in his skull. But still? What self-respecting person hitches themself to THIS flaming scow?
And the 20 footers stop comming, slight minor detail