*** “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
[ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ]
[NOTE; the following excerpts are fro David Frum’s “That ’70s Feeling,” The Atlantic; June, 2025 ]
1] “In January..Trump inherited an economy..growing strongly.” Low unemployment. Restrained inflation. If Trump left it alone, he could’ve coasted to economic success. “Instead, Trump single-handedly plunged the economy into chaos..Trump’s tariffs are like a hundred self-inflicted oil shocks, all arriving at the same time.” Trump and surrogates promise a new era of prosperity where investors build American factories. Even if this were true, “the result would still be a bad bargain. Tariff-sheltered industries tend to produce inferior goods at higher prices.”
“But Trump’s tariffs will not induce much factory-building. Who’d invest..unless assured that foreign competition would be excluded for a long time, if not forever?”
*** “wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by facts.”
historian. Barbara Tuchman, 1980 ]
2]. “Donald Trump has no grasp of history. The people around him are afraid to teach it ti him. So Trump’s trade war could well lead him, as the economy sinks, to ever more interventionism of his own: subsidies and tariff exemptions for favored companies; payouts to farmers and other constituencies; political warfare against the independence of the Federal Reserve.”
“The most dangerous temptation that Trump may face is to impose some form of capital controls to stop investors from dumping dollar assets. Trump’s trade war has driven a sell-off of U.S. Treasury bonds, which raised interest rates in the United States.”
*** “In public affairs, stupidity is more dangerous than knavery.” [ President Woodrow Wilson, 1913 ]
3] “The grim fact about stagflation is that – once stumbled into – it is very hard to escape.”
*** “Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.”
[ Anatole France ]
4] “Ultimately, the end of the crisis will depend on the actions of millions of people across dozens of trading nations. Only if and when they recover their trust in the United States will the U.S, and world economies fully recover from the breach of trust Trump has created. How long will it take? No one knows.”
*** “How can you be a person if your words are not to be trusted.” [ Confucius ]
5] “As a businessman, Trump was notorious for operating in bad faith….He repeatedly drove his properties into bankruptcy, leaving creditors, investors, employees to bear the costs of his failure.. Trump vowed to “make America great again” with the same predatory methods….The only way he feels confident that he prevailed is if the other party suffers.”
***. “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.” [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
[NOTE; Trump’s first trade war cost between 160,000 and 240, ooo American jobs. This one already is ringing major alarm bells about what will happen to small businesses. Trump’s chaotic off-again, on-again tariffs are already creating much uncertainty – neither investors, business, nor consumers spend in such a climate – meaning stagflation is a very distinct possibility. Most respected economists REJECT Trump’s theories. There is some sell-off of U.S. financial assets – which is nothing but trouble. Major question: how does Trump’s trade war against the world “..promote the general Welfare..”?????????? Exactly WHO will suffer “a little pain” from Trump’s STUPIDITIES ??????]
With Justice For All 