Tag: economy

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CCI. – Trump, Republicans INTENTIONALLY Blow Up U.S. National Debt

~ tomdolen

*** “..the right’s..overriding mission, at which they’ve succeeded smashingly, is to make sure the rich get richer [and big business bigger], and the most direct, unambiguous, universal way of doing that is by keeping their taxes low, no matter the costs… Fiscal responsibility rhetorically pops back to life for Republicans only when they’re out of power in Washington, and only as an argument for achieving their secondary goals of reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits and preventing any major expansion of health or education or other social programs.”
“Irving Kristol, that mastermind and key promoter of remaking the political economy, had candidly announced this new strategy of the right. – right-wing fiscal recklessness, forcing the left into defensive restraint. – in a Wall Street Journal column back in 1980..” [ Kurt Andersen: “Evil Geniuses ].

This post examines how the Republicans have blown up the U.S. national debt in the last 45 years. It was less than $1 trillion when Reagan was inaugurated. Reagan, Bush, Trump tax cuts have produced a $39 trillion U.S. national debt. According to the U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data system, when Trump was inaugurated January 20, 2017. – the U.s. national debt was $19,944,429,217,107. The IMMORAL Trump tax cuts of 2017 and 2025, plus annual $1 trillion interest payments have DOUBLED YOUR. national debt. The consequences are many…..

***. “The second Vice is Lying, the first is running in Debt.” [ Benjamin Franklin: “Poor Richard’s Almanack” ]. [NOTE: Thus Donald John Trump is. GUILTY of THE top two vices !!!!!!!!!!! – and YOU pay for them.]

This post presents excerpts from: “They Blew Up the Debt, Stalled America’s Future, and Stuck You With the Bill. All to Enrich the Top 1% and Win Elections” [ Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; June, 2026 ]:

2]. “This year, America will spend over a trillion dollars just ti pay interest on the current $39 trillion national debt, a debt entirely the result of a 45 year-long GOP scam designed to make the rich richer and elect Republicans, all the while simultaneously screwing Democrats and average working class people.”

9]. “The combined Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts, along with Bush’s two wars add up to more than our current national debt of – $39 trillion. And the only way to fix all this without causing horrible pain for the American people is to undo those three president’s tax cuts and take America back to the tax system we had in 1980.”

10] “..Trump..once bragged: “I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me.”

***. “Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous consciousness of honor.” [ Thomas Paine; 1792 ]

4] “…here’s the “lost opportunity cost”. of what that trillion dollars a year we now pay in interest…on the GOP’s Debt could do for America:
– First, it could guarantee universal childcare and early childhood education nationwide that would free millions of parents to work and start businesses…”

  • Second, it could make all public colleges, universities, and trade schools tuition-free, while also wiping out existing federal student loan debt over time.”
    – Third, the U.S. could could establish a universal healthcare system or at least a robust public option with zero premiums and minimal out-of-pocket costs, ending medical bankruptcies and improving public health outcomes.”
    – Fourth, it could fully fund a national infrastructure modernization program, repairing every deficient bridge in the country, rebuild highways, expand mass transit, and replace aging water systems, including lead pipe removal nationwide.”
    – Fifth, a trillion dollars a year could finance a rapid transition to clean energy: building out solar and wind at scale, modernizing the grid, subsidizing home electrification, and accelerating EV infrastructure to catch up with China.”
    – Sixth, it could end homelessness in America, with massive savings in healthcare and policing.”

    ***. “The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.”
    [ Andrew Jackson; 7th U.S. President ]
    – Seventh, we could provide a guaranteed basic income [ – $500 to $1,000 a month ] to every adult American or a more targeted version for lower- and middle-income households, dramatically reducing poverty.”
    – Eighth, it could expand Social Security and Medicare benefits significantly – raising monthly checks, lowering the retirement age, or both – while shoring up the system’s long-term solvency.”
    – Ninth, the U.S. could also fund universal paid family and medical leave, so no one ever again has to go to work sick or choose between a paycheck and caring for a newborn or a sick relative.”
    – Tenth, it could dramatically increase teacher pay, reducing class sizes, modernizing school facilities, and providing universal free school meals.”
    – Eleventh, it could launch a large-scale affordable housing initiative, building millions of. units, stabilizing rents, and helping first-time buyers with down payments.”
    – Twelfth, it could rebuild and expand public health infrastructure, including pandemic preparedness, local health departments, research funding, and domestic manufacturing of critical medicines and supplies.”

    *** “As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible.” [ George Washington; September 17, 1796 ]

    1] “Republicans in May proposed an appropriations bill that will allocate a billion dollars to pay for Donald Trump’s Golden Epstein Dance Hall [ a.k.a. “Ballroom”]. Every penny of it will be borrowed and we’ll be paying interest on that money for the rest of our lifetimes unless something dramatic changes.”

    3]. ‘..by 2030, Fortune magazine reports, we’ll. be paying $2 trillion in interest at the current rate of burn, as Republicans add more and more items to the national debt every day.”

    5]. “And even after doing several of…[the 12 things mentioned above in #4 ]…at once, there’d still be room for things like universal broadband, modernizing the postal system, expanding national parks and conservation efforts, and funding scientific research at levels that could accelerate breakthroughs in everything from cancer to renewables to clean water.”

    ***. “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” [ Thomas Jefferson; 7/12/1816 ]

    6] “It all started in the 1970s when Republican strategist Jude Wanniski noted that Republicans were viewed as Grinches while Democrats. – who’d brought the people the minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, free college, and dozens of other popular programs – were viewed as Santas. His solution was twofold: have Republicans become the “tax cut Santas”. while forcing Democrats to “shoot their own Santa” in the face by cutting back on those gift-like programs.”

    7] “The Two Santas scheme has two parts: “When a Republican is in the White House, spend money like a drunken sailor, running up the debt as hard and fast as possible. All this deficit spending…produces “good times”. by stimulating the economy like crazy, making Americans think Republicans are good with economics when in fact they’re only good at spending borrowed money. “When a Democrat is in the White House, start screaming about the debt and how ‘our children will have to pay for this!!!” to force that president and the Democrats in Congress to “shoot’ their own social programs by cutting them back, producing hard times and reducing the deficits.” [NOTE: hw many people voted for Trump – saying he was “a good businessman”!!!!!!!!!!!]

    8]. “To justify all this deficit spending, Wanniski invented a term “supply-side economics,” arguing that tax cuts for the morbidly rich would pay for themselves as wealth “trickled down” to average working people, and Art Laffer handily supplied a “curve” that seemed technical and scientific. The media lapped it up. It was all, of course, bullsh*t…”

    *** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [ Supreme court Justice Louis Brandeis ]

    [NOTE: do the research!!! – get the REAL, un-spun NUMBERS. – on income distribution, especially 1947-73; on the average top marginal rates, 1933-1980. – cut in half by Reagan, bush, Trump. We don’t have record numbers of billionaires by accident !!!!!!!!!!! We don’t have a $39 trillion U.s. national debt by accident !!!!!!!!! We don’t have large numbers of potential U.S. blue collar workers unemployed in crafts their fathers were !!!!!!! WE don’t write these posts – all 201 of them – for fun. We want you, Mr. and Mrs. American – to begin to learn the truth.

    Bottom line: the unprecedented mass blue and white collar American prosperity – HAS. BEEN. DELIBERATELY. SABOTAGED. AND STOLEN. AWAY. – by the greedy top 1%, by the Far Right, by the Republican Party. Do your own research. The intent is recorded, the programs – G.I.Bill, Social Security, etc. – are recorded. Trump is simply, hopefully, the final conclusion of this decades long PLANNED. THEFT. Trump is now destroying much of the basis for a real democratic society – one that cares about its citizens. Trump is destroying YOUR democratic government right before your eyes – much of this programed by “Project 2025” – itself a project of the Far Right.

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXXIX. – Trump, Republicans, Put America in Financial Peril

~ tomdolen

***. “A sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action. It is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing contingencies and providing against them; it is expecting contingencies and being prepared for them.” [ Hannah More ]

This post BEGINS to examine how the American economy, which was fairly sound in 2000. – IS NOT in 2006. We BEGIN to examine reasons WHY. We begin to examine Edward Lotterman’s question: “..why did we throw it away?” That answer begins in 1981. The U.S. national debt was LESS than $1 trillion. President Reagan nearly TRIPLED it. – and laid the framework for future national debt problems: Reagan cut the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28%; plus there are other tax maneuvers by which the rich escape taxation. We’ve gone from the most equal to THE most unequal income distribution. – and that might be “our” biggest problem: America no longer shares income as it did from 1947-73, during the U.S. middle class STATISTICAL golden age. Greed and selfishness has its costs….

Read and THINK on the following excerpts from: “Ah, the good old days of balanced budgets” [ Edward Lotterman; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 6/7/26 ]: “..understand how adversely our nation’s economy has turned in the past three decades.”

12] “We had a balanced budget as late as 2001 but we passed four tax cuts. There is no foreseeable chance those will be undone. We had deregulated banking and Wall Street and got the 2007 financial meltdown as one result. Timid regulation designed to correct that was passed, but was erased once control of the White House passed.” [ He just told YOU one reason how & why Republicans are GUILTY of sabotaging YOUR financial future. ]

9]. “Countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Norway with incomes near that of the U.S. spend $9,000 to $10000. Note that all these countries have longer life expectancies and better health indicators in several regards than we do. [ WHY are Scandinavians every year “the happiest people on earth”? ]

5] “A key problem was in the assumption that the fraction on income subject to FICA, long about 85% of total income, would stay the same. The problem was that we were going through a radical transformation of our economy to one in which most of the increase in income would be in the form of interest, dividends and, especially capital gains…None of this income that was driving the growth was subject to FICA.”

6] “Given the special ‘step-up basis” treatment of capital gains held until death and increasing legal craftiness in keeping funds off-shore or in multi-generational trusts, a high percentage of this wealth was never hit by income taxes either.” [ WHY NOT??? Are YOU seeing CORRUPTION in action here ??? ]

***. “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities, that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.” [ Adam Smith: “The Wealth of Nations” ]

1] “..compared with our most pressing problems today, U.S. federal finances were on a solid footing. The national debt in June 2000 was $3.495 trillion…As a proportion of the value of all national output, the debt was at 34.1%, the lowest level since 1985. Compare those figures to the $31.2 trillion, and 100% of GDP, that hit this past February.”

2] ‘..there were problems lurking underneath the surface. Some were demographic. Some were changes in the structure of the U.S. economy. Some were a change in the dynamics of U.S. politics. Some were were changes in the international order. Some of these were our own fault or failings and some completely outside our control.”

3] “a bipartisan panel appointed by President Ronald Reagan did an admirable job overall of renovating Social Security, although a key reform they made would instead turn into a ticking time bomb that is exploding now.”

4] “THe FICA tax on earnings for the old age, survivors and disability sections of Social Security had been raised periodically…The commission stepped that up to 12.4% of income by 1990. It has stayed at that level for 36 years even as the demographic and economic assumptions on which the commission based its decisions did not hold up.”

***. “I need to pay higher taxes. I’ve paid, in absolute, more taxes over ten billion [dollars], than anyone else, but, you know, the government should require people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes.” [ Bill Gates Then – consider billionaire Warren Buffett’s statement that his secretary pays taxes at a higher rate than he does….. ]

7] ‘..while the trust fund for eventual old age retirement grew, it did not do so rapidly enough to cover inflation-adjusted payments to baby boomers…A relatively modest increase in FICA rates 30 years ago, or a re-definition back then of what income was subject to FICA, would have solved the problem, but politically, Democrats had been burned repeatedly by GOP charges that they always wanted to raise tax rates.” [ Double Good for Repubs – they win elections, they protect their rich donors from tax increases !!!!! ]

8] “Total spending on health care, including households, employers and government, totaled 8.9% of GDP in 1980. It was nearing 10% when the 1984 Social Security reforms stair-stepped the Medicare portion of FICA to 2.9% of earnings by 1990 – where it has stayed ever since…But in 2000, few anticipated this increase would approach $15,000 per capita and 18% of GDP by 2025. Such growth in U.S. costs has outrun levels in other industrialized nations that average about $6,000 per capita and 9.3″ of GDP.” [. SO – WHAT do THEY do that “WE” do not do ??? ]

10]. “Also lying latent was a decline in the bipartisan functioning of Congress. In the 1990s, there was genuine deliberation across party lines on most issues and confirmations.” [ Then – tribal conformity and “no compromise with the libs” steadily increased; tribalism; Trumpism; Repubs scorched earth political warfare in Congress, etc. ]

*** “After the 1994 victories, GOP Congressional leaders implemented a series of measures to institutionalize partisan warfare…conservatives had succeeded in shattering bipartisanship and cooperation in Congress..” [Geoffrey Kabaservice: “Rule And Ruin” ]

11] “Riegele Neal, a key banking deregulation act in 1993…The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that abolished most New Deal-era limits on Wall street institutions….these financial deregulatory bills…were negative in setting the stage for the financial sector debacle that would unfold in 2007-2009..”

13] “Birth rates have plummeted. The cut-off of immigration..reduced the number of working-age people that will be available to produce and contribute for baby boomers who retire.” [ REpubs sabotage, again ]

14]. “The Trump administration wants an increase in defense spending unheard of since the Civil War.” [ NOTE: money that will NOT be available to deal with various American economic, social, infrastructure, etc. problems. Bedside the question of WHICH weapons will be purchased – more corruption? Cheap drones, anyone??? ]

***. “Like Gingrich, McConnell had found a serious flaw in the code of American democracy. our distinctive political system gives an antigovernment party with a willingness to cripple government an enormous edge…they made government less functional..” [ Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson: “American Amnesia…How The War on Government Led People To Forget What Made America Prosper” ]. [ NOTE: to understand what Repubs have done to YOUR democracy – read this book ]

Donald Trump continues the Republican war on government. – firing 322,000 workers, crippling agencies that discipline business; defunding government by obscenely cutting taxes on the rich and corporations. [ those who have benefited most since 1981 ]; and deliberately running up the u.S. national debt – which WILL provoke a crisis. – which Repubs WILL attempt to use to cut YOUR benefits. Check the NUMBERS. – which party has enacted policies and laws to benefit the rich and corporations ??? WHO cut top marginal tax rates??? WHO has attempted to cripple the I.R.S. ???]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXXI. – “Our leaders are out of touch on income inequality”

~ tomdolen

***. “..the single most powerful and least-understood threat to democracy today: the attempt by..billionaire-backed radical right to undo democratic governance.. a stealth bid to reverse-engineer all of America..back to the political economy of oligarchic governance of mid-century Virginia..” [Nancy MacLean: “Democracy in Chains”]

This post presents excerpts from economist Edward Lotterman from. “Our leaders are out of touch on income inequality”. [St. Paul Pioneer Press; 3/22/26]:

7]. “..it seems clear that we are at the most unequal levels since the Gilded Age of ostentatious spending ended prior to World War I.”

3] “Navarro’s boneheaded assumption is that goods affected by tariffs make up the same fraction of total spending fro rich people as they do for lower income ones. You don’t need a Ph.D. in econ to know that isn’t true. A far greater fraction of the incomes of poor people go for basic necessities than for rich people.”

4] “..items on which import tariffs are levied make up a far higher fraction of household spending for low-and middle-income people than for higher-income ones. Rich people may pay more for tariffs in absolute number of dollars, but much less relative to income. Tariffs really are ‘regressive”. in the strict public-finance definition of taxing a higher percentage of total income for the poor than for the rich.”

*** “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” [ John Kenneth Galbraith ]

1]. “International studies of educational outcomes often show that U.S. students’ critical thinking skills lag those of their peers in many European and Asian countries. It is not just kids; when administration officials open their mouths, it is clear that the problem goes right to the top, especially in dealing with income distribution. Start with President Donald Trump’s trade whisperer, Peter Navarro.”

2] “Responding to assertions that working-class U.S. households would bare the brunt of the administration’s tariffs, Navarro argued that was wrong. The reason? Well, the highest-earning 10% of U.S. households account for 50% of all consumer spending. Therefore, that small group also would pay 50% of all tariffs according to Navarro..”

5] “.. Navarro’s camp..miss a loophole the size of a bypass tunnel at Hoover Dam. The top income tier of U. S. households travel abroad many. times more frequently. They can buy their luxury goods…and wear them on the plane back or pack in their luggage…what U.S. customs agent will demand they open their suitcases and explain the provenance of every item?”

***. “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of perceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ Barbara Tuchman ]

6] “The other facet of Navarro’s sad song about the plight of the rich is his acknowledgement that 10 percent of households do make half of all household spending. The distribution of income in the U.S., which had gotten slowly more equal for four decades after World War II, reversed as the 20th century ended. it is now getting steadily more unequal, especially over the last 20 years.”

8] “Similar tone deafness was evident in statements made by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and by Trump himself about the effects of oil prices. These are being pushed sharply higher by Trump’s “war of choice, not of necessity” against Iran.”

*** “Being ignorant is not so much Shame, as being unwilling to learn.” [ Benjamin Franklin ]

9] “If you want to see those hit hard by high gas prices, think of a single parent who drives a clapped-out F-150 pickup to their job at the Dollar General store in some rust-belt town. Or the beginning farmer…Or consider the over-the-road owner-operator who still has a monthly truck payment…When oil prices go up, such Americans do not “make a lot of money.”

10] ‘..for a final example of willful blindness about financial realities, consider the situation of National Guard or other reservists who once again face having their lives turned upside down by a call to active duty.”

11] “The ways in which both government taxing and spending policies contribute to shamefully increasing income inequality between Americans should” be one of the top issues of our age. Numbskull thinking on the part of officials who should know better makes the problem worse, not better.”

***. “We Americans live in the most unequal advanced country…When compared with similar societies, ours has the greatest inequities in the distribution of income and wealth, the provision of basic health care, the relationship between CEO salaries and average wages…This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the direct result of twenty-five years of public policy that has favored wealth, rewarded property, and encouraged the concentration of both.”
[ John Ehrenberg: “Servants Of Wealth. The Right’s Assault On Economic Justice” ]

*** {NOTE: if in doubt, consider: “The typical CEO compensation package rose nearly 6% in 2025 to $17.7 million….at Coca-Cola, its CEO earned nearly. 1,739 times the median pay of $17,947 for its workers.” [“Median CEO pay up nearly 6% in ’25”; Associated Press; 5/28/26]. Read “The Spirit Level.” ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXX. – “Trump’s China Policy Has Weakened America”

~ tomdolen

***. “No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country’s ruin.”
[ George Washington ]

This post presents excerpts from. “Trump’s China Policy Has Weakened America” [ New York Times editorial; 5/17/26 ]: Read this VERY carefully – pause, think on what they say…..

8]. “The competition between the United States and China matters to the entire world. China wants to dominate Asia and expand its global influence. It wants to discredit democracy and downgrade the importance of human rights and political equality. It wants a world where ethnic and religious oppression is accepted. China is the most important ally of several brutal dictatorships, including Russia, North Korea and Iran. Anybody who believes in pluralism, freedom, and other liberal values should be rooting against a world where Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist party have more sway.”

***. “The damage the president has done to our security is a consequence of his terrible foreign policy choices, an area where Trump’s instincts are so backward that we will devote an entire chapter addressing them.”
[ Anonymous: “A Warning” ]. {Note: Anonymous was a senior Trump. administration official}

4] “For a time, Mr. Trump seemed to have started a bipartisan era of realpolitik toward a country that seeks to diminish American power. As is so often the case, though, Mr. Trump showed little strategic discipline, and he prioritized his personal and political interests over the nation’s.” [read this again – SLOWLY …]

1] “Last week’s summit in Beijing between President Trump and President Xi Jinping ended with few concrete accomplishments, but Americans should be relieved about that. The most likely alternative was a setback for the United States.”

2] “In both his terms..he has weakened the United States relative to China…His failed tariffs have been a central example, setting off a humbling chain of events. The tariffs proved ineffective at intimidating China…China restricted U.S. access to valuable rare-earth metals – and learned just how much leverage it has. To regains access to the minerals, Mr. Trump agreed to allow China to buy advanced American semiconductors that power artificial intelligence.” [read this again – it shows YOU Trump’s rigid Stupidity, China’s long-term thinking]

3]. “He has also diluted instruments of American power that have long been crucial to constraining foreign adversaries. he has alienated partners that can help counter China…He has cut funding for scientific research, diminishing American prowess in A.I., green energy and other realms.” [Trump’s rigid Stupidity weakens America]

***. “No government could give us tranquility and happiness at home, which did not possess sufficient stability and strength to make us respectable abroad.” [ Alexander Hamilton; 6/29/1787]

5] “..America’s inability to defeat Iran’s much smaller military has raised questions about whether it could help defend Taiwan from a mainland invasion.” [ China is watching and waiting… ]

6] “The biggest risk of the summit was that Mr. Trump would trade short-term American gains, such as exporting more soybeans and other agricultural goods, for long-term Chinese advantages.” [ !!!!! read this again – SLOWLY – they are saying Trump would even consider trading soybeans for high-value technical knowledge, or, let China invader Taiwan unopposed. Are you kidding me????? ]

7]. “Taiwan manufactures many of the semiconductors that American companies use. China..remains significantly behind the United States in the race to develop the most advanced A.I…..Mr. Xi very much wants the restrictions removed, and Mr. Trump has begun to loosen them. China now has permission to purchase Nvidia’s high-end H200 chips, but is still blocked from buying the company’s top-line chips, known as Blackwell. If Mr. Trump ever lifts that restriction, he will hand mr. Xi a huge victory.” [can YOU conceive Churchill giving Hitler anything that would help him??? Can YOU conceive ANY American president, 1945-1991, giving the Soviets ANYTHING that would help them?}

***. “I asked about his strategy for dealing with Chinese President Xi Jinping…”Well, first of all, his personality is incredible,’ Trump said. “His strength, his mental and physical strength is great. he’s very, very smart. He’s very cunning. I get along with him fantastically well.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Woodward: “Rage” ]
[NOTE: YOU tell me – where’s the strategy?????? Is it Trump is awed by this dictator? He gets along with him “fantastically well”??? …..]
***. “…and foreign governments calculated that Trump could be won over relatively easily, with flattery and deference.” [ Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius” ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXXI. – Trump Makes Inequality [Affordability] Worse

~ tomdolen

*** “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created. Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both what the government does and what it does not do. Government has the power to move money from the top to the bottom and the middle, or vice versa.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winning economist Joseph Siglitz: “The Price Of Inequality” ]

Stiglitz is NOT the only economist to say this. – because. NUMBERS. say this. The May 8, 2026 PBS News Hour: labor’s share of earnings continues down – has reached “a record low” share. And t his: “..the top 10 percent hold two-thirds of total household wealth and are worth an average $8.1 million. The bottom half of households, measured by wealth, hold just 2.5 percent of the total and are worth $60,000 on average.” [ Abha Bhattaral, Rachel Lerman, Federica Cocco: “Millionaires: Not What They Used To Be”; Washington post weekly; 4/26/26 ]
And, of course, NO Trump DICTATORSHIP policies will really help the bottom 80%. We know, knew in 2017, that Trump’s signature tax cut would make things worse, add to the national debt – it did. His “Big Beautiful Bill” is ugly, will make that damage permanent. Soon, YOU will hear cries that “we need” to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Trump’s “Project 2025″ fueled administration is cutting all kinds of government services to YOU to pay for his obscene billionaires’ tax cuts. Second term Trump damage: 66,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the last year.” [5/9/26]

***. “The Betrayal of the American Dream” is the story of how a small number of people in power have deliberately put in place policies that have enriched themselves while cutting the ground out from underneath America’s greatest asset – its middle class…preferential tax law provisions have showered on the wealthy and.. they will hollow out the middle class for years to come…We are no longer the democracy w once were. We have become a plutocracy.”
[ Double Pulitzer Prize winners Donald Barlett and James Steele ]

This post presents excerpts from: “Why †he ‘K-shaped’ economy is not OK” [Edward Lotterman; St. paul Pioneer Press; 4/26/26 ]:

12] “So why the ever-increasing difference in growth between overall output and that of median income received? Because much of the increase in overall household income has been captured by the highest-income 10% of households.”

1] “..the K-shaped economy..refers to an economy that is moving in two different directions for different groups of people…over time, the upper arm of the “K” moves up, the lower down, signifying not only that the rich are getting richer, but their distance from the poor is getting ever greater.”

8] “Good times lasted for 25 years and produced 80 million new citizens, better clothed, better fed and with better health and education than any other time in our nation’s history. There was no K-shape to that economy, virtually everyone was becoming better off.”

***. “In terms of wealth and income, America in the 1950’s and 1960’s was more egalitarian than it had been in more than a century…those same decades were also the high point of social connectedness and civic engagement. Record highs in equality and social capital coincided…Conversely, the last third of the 20th century was a time of growing inequality and eroding social capital…The timing of the two trends is striking: Sometime around 1965-70 America reversed course and started becoming both less economically and less well connected socially and politically.”
[ Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett: “The Spirit Level”. NOTE: this book, an international best-seller, was attacked by Right-wing elements. – because. – it told too much truth ]

9] “In the quarter century from 1950 to 1975, output of the U.S. economy grew by 3.8% a year. In contrast, in the most recent quarter-century, that from 2000 to 2025, output growth did not make 2.2% a year. That difference…is huge. The U.S. economy in 1975 was 2.54 times as large as it had been in 1950. In contrast, the economy in 2025 was only 1.7 times larger…”

10] “..if the U.S. economy had grown as fast under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden as it had under Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, inflation-adjusted GDP would be $38.8 trillion, not $23.8 trillion. That 63% greater total would have amounted to over $43,000 greater available goods and services to every man, woman and child in our population of 349 million people.”

11] “..inflation-adjusted per capita GDP grew by 72% from 1985 to 2015. But inflation-adjusted median household income – that received right at the middle of all households from lowest to highest income. – only grew by 25%…working people are not reaping the financial benefits that their own labor is producing.”

***. “During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both kore fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. Incomes rose in sync. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests.’ [ Kurt Andersen: “Evil Geniuses” ]

2] “..higher-educated, higher-income households that, on average, include cohorts of people, especially the baby boomers born from 1946 through 1964…they have had it better than any other birth cohort in U.S. history.”

3] “Boomers’ adult children are not doing as well as their parents and their adult grandchildren even worse. In relative terms, they have lower incomes and lower net worth than their boomer forebears did at the same age. It is harder for them to find work and much harder to rent or buy shelter. Basic medical care and insurance coverage chew up a larger fraction of earnings than in the past……..general inflation…..Student loans….”

4] “and the worst is yet to come. There are a few general issues that determine how well any certain birth cohort does over their lifespans: First, how productive is the overall economy…..Second, how is total income..actually divided up?…. Third, do circumstances arise that..impose greater costs…. Fourth, are the relevant factors “cyclical” or ‘structural”? ‘

*** “From the end of World War II through the 1970s..average incomes..of the bottom 50 percent of earners rose by 129 percent…During the same three-plus decades, the incomes of the top 1 percent rose ..about 58 percent. And the gap between the two groups was narrower than it was before or afterward. After 1980..growth for the bottom 50 percent of earners cratered, totaling a mere 21 percent over the next thirty-five years, while the incomes of the top 1 percent of earners nearly tripled [194 percent].” [ Sarah Chayes: “On corruption In America” ]

5]. “The economy bobbled repeatedly from 1920 to 1940. The twenties roared in some industries…The generation of sailors and doughboys had the deck stacked against them….after the stock market crash starting in 1929, the whole country and world were in depression.’

6]. “The economy boomed during World War II. but fears of returning to depression because of returning military forces..were common. This motivated passage of the GI Bill to keep many vets out of the labor market by sending them to school…our status as the one undamaged industrialized nation in the whole world combined with productivity boosts from millions of better-educated veterans and from defense-oriented technological research stoked a fire under the economy.”

7] “G>I> Bill mortgages jump-started homebuilding. Constructing thousands of miles of highways modeled on Germany’s autobahns, together with thousands of new hospitals with delivery rooms for babies, and tens of thousands of grade schools, high schools and universities plus technological advances in agriculture, all shifted our nation into boom gear.”

***. “…years-long assault by Republicans on the Internal Revenue Service.’ Bush II hired private contractors, who ‘..ended up costing the federal government money.” Republicans then ‘slashed 20% of the IRS’s budget and 22% of its staff from 2010 to 2018. For people making more than $1 million, the number of tax audits dropped by 72% – and the money the IRS collects from audits fell by 40% Biden’s new IRS commissioner..told Congress the agency is leaving on the table $1 trillion a year in uncollected taxes because it doesn’t have enough staff.” [ Washington monthly; July-August, 2021 ]

[ “American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created.” ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLXXV. – Trump Blows Up The National Debt

~ tomdolen


** “To contract new debts is not the way to pay old debts.” { George Washington ]

The U.S. national debt for 1789 – 1980, when Ronald Reagan became president was less than $1 trillion. America had paid for the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, recovery from the 1930’s Great Depression, built the Eisenhower freeway system, gone to the moon, instituted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and much more.

This post begins to examine how Republicans blew up the national debt deliberately, disarmed the IRS, lowered taxes on the rich. The record is statistically clear, and, like much else, the Trump DICTATORSHIP made the national debt crisis much worse. – and. – of course, lied about it.
Below are some beginning excerpts, laying out the FACTS for YOU:

1] “..74 percent of the debt was run up under the last three Republican presidents and..no Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower ever submitted a balanced budget to Congress.” { economist Edward Lotterman: “Cynicism and self-delusion will bankrupt this nation”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 4/23/09 ]

2] “The tax cuts championed by President Donald Trump are helping push the nation toward an unprecedented level of debt, heightening the risk of another financial crisis, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.”
[ Evan Halper: “Tax cuts accelerate U.S. toward a debt crisis”; Los Angeles Times; 6/27/18]

3] “The amount of corporate taxes collected by the federal government has plunged to historically low levels in the first sic months of the year, pushing up the federal budget deficit much faster than economists predicted. The reason is President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.” [ Jim Tankersley: “New tax law does a number on the debt”; New York Times; 7/29/18 ]

4]. “Trump also insisted that a new round of tax cuts would lower the debt. – a claim disputed by most mainstream economists, and undermined by the actual budgetary effects of the tax cut he signed into law..” [ Jeff Stein: “Trump’s budget ideas don’t add up”; Washington Post; 9/8/24 ]

5]. “..the eight Clinton years had the fastest average growth in inflation-adjusted GDP since the 1960s, a rate nearly twice as high as over the 23 years since. We threw that sustainability away with tax cuts in 2001, 2003 and 2007.”
[ economist Edward Lotterman: “Wanted: Political cover for the inevitable”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 10/13/24 ]

***. “Thanks to the half-revolution adopted in July 1981, more than a trillion dollars has already been needlessly added to our national debt. – a burden that will plague us indefinitely. Our national savings has been squandered to pay for a tax cut we could not afford…borrowed enormous amounts of foreign capital…the U.S. economy will most surely grow much more slowly. By turning ourselves into a debtor nation for the first time since World War I, we have sacrificed future living standards.” [ David Stockman: “The Triumph of Politics”. – he was Reagan”s budget director!!!!! ]

6] The 2017 Trump tax cuts added $2.5 trillion to the national debt by 2024 analysis. They now represent 6-8% of the current 2026 debt. If they are made permanent, the cost could increase by another $4 trillion over the next ten years.
[ Internet – 4/29/26. some estimates are for a much higher debt from Trump’s tax cuts. ]

7]. “..Donald Trump’s proposal to further reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% would make the bottom half of the nation’s income distribution poorer while boosting the fortunes of those at the very top, according to analysis published Oct. 3 by economists at American University.” [ Dispatches; The Progressive Populist; November l, 2024 ]

8]. “Suply-side cultists and Republicans had forecast gloom and doom from the Bush and Clinton tax increases, but the result was the last real prosperity our nation has had.” [ economist Edward Lotterman: “Deficits matter; more than elections”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 7/8/24 ]

9} “Trump cuts force cities to scramble. Minn. communities rethink infrastructure projects amid uncertain federal funding”. [ Sydney Kashiwagi; Minnesota Star Tribune; 4/7/25 ]

10] “How the GOP may pay for the tax cuts”. [ Jacob Bogage; Washington post Weekly; 1/5/25 ]: “Nonpartisan scorekeepers project that Trump’s campaign platform would add up to $15 trillion to future borrowing [the national debt]” Listed below are are “10 policies that Trump and Republicans have floated..” NOTICE WHO GETS HURT AND WHO DOESN’T GET HURT!!!!! “Impose new tariffs. Repeal clean energy programs. Cut ‘unauthorized’ programs. Cancel student loan forgiveness. Eliminate the Education Department. Cut food stamp benefits. Impose Medicaid work requirements. Withhold anti-obesity drugs. End child tax credit for noncitizens Cut IRS funding [NOTE: cutting IRS funding will acyually cost more than it would save !!!]

*** “Having added to the national debt, the wealthy are now funding initiatives that decry the deficit and call for cuts in programs that provide safety nets for middle-class Americans such as Social Security and Medicare.” [ Double Pulitzer Prize winners Donald Barlett & James Steele: “The Betrayal of The American Dream” ]

{NOTE; and then. – this. – the interest on the Republican created national debt. – $1 trillion WASTED. paying the interest on the national debt EVERY. year. Because. – instead of properly and fairly taxing the rich and corporations. – we’re borrowing it. Much more on the failure, the CORRUPTION, of not fairly taxing them will be in post CLXXVI on the Trump DICTATORSHIP. ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP. – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIV. – Affordability – Trump Lies About, Contributes To It, I

~ tomdolen

***. “He simply couldn’t admit that he’d done anything wrong and he had no empathy for anyone he’d offended, because he had no empathy for anyone, period. Donald Trump’s single greatest character flaw as a leader and human being is his complete and total lack of empathy.” [ Omarosa Manigault Newman: “Unhinged”

This post presents to YOU, some examples of how ‘your” president seeks to convince YOU that the increased prices YOU are paying are a figment of your imagination – and. – most especially. – those higher prices YOU ARE PAYING. – are most definitely not his fault !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Judge for YOURSELF. – by NUMBERS, not rhetoric.

A]. “In his State of the Union address on Feb. 24…the president claimed that the problem of ‘affordability” was solved.” [Bloomberg: “The affordability problem is far from solved”; 3/15/26]

B]. “Given the upheaval we may soon be facing, it would be nice if we had a president capable of leading a thoughtful national conversation about where A.I. is taking us. Suffice it to say, Donald Trump is not that kind of president.” [Michael Steinberger: “Your Job Could Be in Jeopardy Already”; New York Times; 3/8/26] {NOTE: – Read this article and find out WHY Steinberger says this. What does factual evidence show us?]

C] “This fits the economist’s notion of the nation’s post-COVID “K-shaped economy”: A small upper class is at the top, accumulating wealth and driving spending, while everyone else is at the bottom and facing a widening gap. The cost of living has outpaced the traditional definition of a middle-class life..” [Emma Nelson: “Middle earners feeling the pinch”; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/1/26}. NOTE ******. Read this article, and others, about the “K-shaped economy” – THIS is one big clue why YOU , and others not making at least $120,000 are struggling. Get the FACTS, the NUMBERS]

D] “Even people earning six figures. – which puts them in the top 18% of wage earners. – are secretly struggling to keep afloat.” [NOTE: as an economy that can’t comfortably support even the top 18%. “doing well”????] “What Americans need is higher wages. Salaries have been stagnant or falling in real terms, failing to keep up with inflation and productivity gains since the Vietnam War.” [ Note; which ended about 1975]. [Ted Rall: “Affordability: We Need Higher Wages, Not Lower Prices”; The Progressive Populist; January, 2026]

*** “And then there are Trump’s many delusions…claims to know more…how to deal…to be the world’s foremost expert…All that is nonsense. For almost three decades I have been pointing out that Trump creates his own reality, a point on which his other leading biographers agree.” { Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” }

E]. “Days away from the anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, grocery prices are still rising, undercutting his administration’s rhetoric about how it is making life more affordable for average Americans….Yet Trump continues to falsely claim otherwise. “Grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down,’ he said Tuesday afternoon during a speech in Detroit. It’s not the first time that he has said food prices are down, even when data show they’re not.” [ Kevin Draper, Julie Creswell: “Grocery prices Rising Despite Trump’s Claims”; New York Times; 1/17/26 }
[NOTE: Read the article – find out. WHY. YOU pay more for YOUR food. – the facts]

F] “One year after the Trump administration took control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog has largely retreated from enforcement and regulatory work, changes that consumer advocates and Democrats now estimate have cost Americans at least $19 billion in financial relief.” [ Ken Sweet: “CFPB changes prove costly”; Associated Press; 2/22/26] [NOTE: ask. YOURSELF; WHY would. ‘your’ president weaken an agency with a proven track record of saving. YOU. money???? Who’s president is he really….maybe his donors….his billionaire friends…because Project 2025 wants it?????- ***THIS is at the crux of YOUR search for facts. this, and many other policies. – are reasons WHY Trump is costing YOU money.]

*** “In a president, character is everything.” [ Peggy Noonan ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CLIII. – Sabotaging. The. American. Economy

~ tomdolen

***. Adam Smith: Progress depends on society being “well governed.” The optimal locus of the “government” is individual ethics. An ethical person is just; plays by the rules; makes others feel secure. But in a society of less than angels, society requires an efficient, effective institutional government to police the behavior of those few who would not otherwise play by the rules. [ Ryan Patrick Hanley, editor: “Adam Smith” ]

This post presents excerpts from “When Future Historians Write About the Fall of American Economic Power, Will Trump Be the Turning Point?” [ Thom Hartmann; The Progressive Populist; March, 2026 ]:

8] “..twice in the past 12 months the value of the dollar has taken a huge hit, in both cases because the world freaked out at Trump’s insanity and started to sell dollars.”

9] “..he went to Davos and blithered through a semi-coherent speech that left international leaders wondering about his sanity, his judgment, and his reliability…the judgment and reliability of the United States itself. Trump’s own economic illiteracy and impulse-driven policies…have damaged the value of our currency and may have put the status of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency at risk.”

***. “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
[ Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. ]

2]. “For more than a hundred years, the United States has been the cornerstone of international economic stability. The independence of our central bank [the “Fed”] has been a part of it, as has the strength of the dollar…And now Trump and the GOP are threatening it all. Trump has added $2 trillion to our national debt in the past 12 months, and he’s on course to do it again [or worse] this year.”

11] “The big impact..could come if international investors and other countries conclude it’s unlikely that the US will be able to repay our debts. Ever since the Bush Crash of 2008 revealed how deregulation had corrupted our banking system, foreign investors holdings of US debt have steadily declined.”

*** “The American people are a very generous people ans will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.” [ Will Rogers ]

1] “America’s economic system has never been fair or perfect, but for more than a century it rested on basic guardrails that kept instability in check and allowed us to fight for progress and win. Those guardrails are now being stripped away by policies that favor wealth and power over accountability and long-term stability.”

*** “Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.” [ Jorge L. Borges ]

3] “When Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, our national debt was less than one trillion dollars, because every president from FDR to Truman to Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon to Ford to Carter had worked to pay down the roughly 140% of GDP debt we ran up fighting World War II.”

4] “Across those same presidencies, America had also built a broad and strong safety net for its citizens, primarily through the New Deal and Great Society programs. And Republicans hated it all, particularly because it’d been paid for with a 74% to 91% income tax on billionaires and a 50% income tax on corporate profits.”

5] “..over the course of the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts and two illegal wars, four Republican presidents managed to add more than $37 trillion to our national debt.”

***. “I need to pay higher taxes. I’ve paid, in absolute, more taxes over ten billion [dollars], than anyone else, but, you know, the government should require the people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes.” [ Bill Gates ]

6] “The grimmest consequence of this is that we’re spending. $1.2 trillion every year on interest payments on our national debt. That’s money that could otherwise have gone to create a national healthcare system, provide free college education, or help people buy their first homes. but, instead, is going to payments to wealthy investors here and abroad who hold US Treasuries.”

7] “Up until recently, we were able to pull this off because the US Dollar has been the world’s reserve currency for the better part of a century….here’s a huge worldwide demand for our currency….that, in turn, is essentially a subsidy for Americans of all stripes: lower mortgage rates, lower car loan rates, easier credit, and US-based companies can more easily finance growth and new product development.”

***. “No society can..be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of..members are poor and miserable..It is but equity..that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have..and share of the produce of their own labor as to themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.” [ Adam Smith ]

10. “As the dollar drops in value, that’s ultimately reflected in everything imported becoming more expensive [which drives inflation],..”

12]. “Trump’s willy-nilly tariffs, often used to extort other nations into giving his family a new hotel or golf course, his constant lies on the international stage about everything from renewable energy to our “right” to invade a foreign country and capture its leader, to his killing fishermen off the coast of Venezuela and his current threats against Iran, all argue against trusting us.”

13]. “Trump’s already destroyed our soft power by gutting USAID, ruined our relationships with our allies by embracing Vladimir Putin and trash-talking NATO and the EU, and now is shaking confidence in our remaining democratic allies by imposing police-state tactics on Blue cities.”

***. “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all…The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affections, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”
[ George Washington ]

14] “The BRICS. [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] countries are on the move, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the UAE having recently joined in an agreement to use their alternative currencies instead of dollars.”

15]. “India and the UAE are now trading in rupees and the dirham, and China is using yuan to buy natural gas from the UAE. China has almost entirely abandoned trhe dollar for their trade with Russia, the UAE, and Iran. Like South Africa, Brazil has increasingly been using the real and the yuan to settle bilateral trade with China, bypassing the US dollar.”

*** “Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.” [George Marshall; U.S. Secretary of State, on the Marshall Plan]

{NOTE: On this critique of Trump’s economic policies – AGAIN, to be fair – ask YOURSELF does his policy satisfy the Founders” TEST: does it ‘..promote the general Welfare..”????? Will America be better off from Trump’s rhetoric and actions????? Do Trump policies contain the wisdom of the “Marshall plan”??? The wisdom of several presidents before him in reducing the national debt????? Are YOU and YOUR children and YOUR grandchildren going to be better off because of Trump policies????? Expert, world-wide, fact-based economic analysis says YOU, America, will NOT be more prosperous and fair because of Trump’s STUPIDITY and INCOMPETENCE.]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, CXXII. – Support Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. – Save. YOUR. Own. Job, Home, Security.

~ tomdolen


*** “Trump lacks the emotional stability, knowledge, critical-thinking skills, and judgments to be commander-in-chief….More surprising than Trump’s lack of knowledge about geopolitics is his ignorance of economics, the field in which he was given a bachelor’s degree….The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop. He says so himself all the time….His entire life Trump has been a con artist.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]

Trump wants to control the U.S. Federal Reserve. ALL evidence, and many economic experts and historians say this would be a DISASTER – for YOU. Some evidence follows.

It is. IMPERATIVE that Jerome Powell remains on the Federal Reserve Board. – for YOUR sake. Please, plead,, beg, urge him to remain until his full term ends in January, 2028. Please contact him in a manner of yourchoosing:
mail: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street and Constitutional Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20551
email: use the Federal Reserve Board website
phone: 888-851-1920; 202-974-7008
TTY: 877-766-8533
Fax: 877-888-2520

Tell Mr. Powell “America needs you on thenFederal Reserve Board. Please stay for your full term. Thank you for your outstanding service to America.”

Consider the following so YOU know some of the circumstances. – what financial experts and historians are saying would be likely results if Donald John Trump controlled America’s central. They are NOT good. – for. YOU.

1] “But the larger, longer-term and probably irreversible danger would be an erosion of the United States as the financial center of the world, and the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s undisputed reserve currency. In this regard, Trump and his minions seem oblivious to the havoc they could create. Either that, or these are the intended outcomes, which is more cynical and more malevolent than I even give these people credit for.” [ Edward Lotterman; “This is how the Fed ends, with a whimper”; St. Paul Pioneer Press; 1/18/26 ]

2] “Powell defends the Fed – and the nation”. [ John Rash; Minnesota Star Tribune; 1/17/26 ]:
A] “..scores of former Fed chairs, Treasury secretaries, leaders of international institutions and even a few Republican senators, sensing an attack not just on Powell but on Fed independence. lent their voices..”..an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine {the Fed’s} independence,”..”
B] “History is replete with ruinous political interference in central bank matters. Most infamously in interwar Germany, whose hyperinflation gave rise to radicalization [and Hitler]…as well as Turkey, Argentina and Venezuela in the postwar era..”
C] “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is the foundation of our economic success.”

3] “What a Trump-Controlled Fed could Do to the Economy”. [ Jeff Sommer; New York Times ]
1] “Veering sharply downward from an appropriate interest rate would probably affect the economy in stages, Mr. Duy told me.” “The impact on inflation might not show up for 10 to 12 quarters,’ or up to three years,,”..”
2]. “Then here are broader repercussions. I’d expect a loss of public confidence in the Fed. And if the institution were no longer functioning independently, it could lose some of its capacity for quick, deft responses to emergencies.”
3]. “A political Fed might not be able to safeguard the value of the dollar, which is the linchpin for the entire global financial system. Investors around the world would be less likely to keep their money in U.s. assets. That would weaken the U.s. economy and hurt people in the United States..”
4] “U.S. consumers would have to live in an environment in which higher inflation – and periodic efforts to tame it. – became the norm…..”living standards would drop..”

4]. “In 1st year of his second term, Trump leaves economic stamp” [ Ben Casselman; New York Times; 1/22/26 ]:
1] “..economists from across the ideological spectrum warn that Trump is setting the country on a path that will, in the long run, leave the economy less dynamic, the financial system less stable and Americans less prosperous in the decades ahead. “We’re weakening the special sauce that made America so great,”…..”
2] “..Trump has begun his second term with what amounts to an all-out assault on many of the institutions and policy paradigms that have long been seen by leaders of both major parties as the foundations of American economic strength.”
3] “..many economists..are much more worried about Trump’s efforts to undermine the Fed’s independence, which, if successful, could make it harder for the central bank to rein in inflation – or, in a potentially even more damaging scenario, cause investors to lose faith in the value of government-issued bonds or the dollar……They are worried about yawning budget deficits…..They are worried that by defunding universities and revoking student visas, the Trump administration will make the U.S. a less attractive place to do scientific research. And they are worried that by using his powers to attack his enemies and reward his friends, Trump will erode the system of rules and laws that for decades has made the U.s, the safest place for investors to bet their money and for entrepreneurs to build their businesses.”

*** “The Trump presidency is about Trump. Period. Full stop. He says so himself..” [ David Cay Johnston ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXXIX – Trumpian Economic Policies Make Depression More Likely

~ tomdolen


*** “Wooden-headedness consists of assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts.”
[ historian. Barbara Tuchman ]

Watch YOUR wallet, YOUR job, YOUR home, America’s financial stability.

First: read two articles: Thom Hartmann’s “The Coming Republican Depression: How the GOP Turned. America Into a Powder Keg, and Is About to Light the Match” [The Progressive Populist, September, 2025], and Colby Smith and Stacy Cowley’s “Critics see risk in Fed cuts to oversight” [ New York Times, November 19, 2025].

Second; Pray. And hope patriotic American officials will overcome Trumpian stupidity and corruption.

Consider these excerpts from Thom Hartmann’s “The Coming Republican Depression:
1]. “Republicans may be fixing to crash the economy again – Republican presidents oversaw 10 of the last 11 recessions and the Republican Great Depression – and they’re doing it to satisfy the greed of the billionaires they serve…..in 1929, Republican deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, financial speculation, and an all-out assault on labor exploded into the Republican Great Depression. Today, every one of the fuse lines that set off those explosions is once again being laid by a Republican president and Party…They are actively destabilizing the pillars of our economy, undermining our democracy, and gutting the social contract that has held us together for nearly a century.”

2]. “We are now living under a Republican president whose party has:
– Repeatedly held the full faith and credit of the United States in debt ceiling standoffs designed to force cruel cuts to programs that serve ordinary people;
– Demanded the Fed lower interest rates in a way that could push the nation into an inflationary spiral even as wages stagnate and housing becomes unaffordable for the bottom 90%;
– Pushed for an end of regulations on banks, fossil fuel companies, tech monopolies, and Wall street speculators, even as their recklessness increases systematic risk;
– Championed massive tax cuts for billionaires and multinational corporations, ballooning the deficit while cutting benefits and raising taxes on working people;
– Enabled trade wars and supply chain disruptions while cutting support for green manufacturing and public investment
– Promoted and made billions from crypto;
– And perhaps most grotesquely, embraced an open authoritarianism and white nationalism, eroding the rule of law and the very stability on which economic confidence depends.
Every one of these moves destabilizes the foundation of modern prosperity. And every one of them echoes the warning signs of past collapses.”

*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]

Consider these excerpts from Smith and Cowley’s. “Critics see risk in Fed cuts…”:

1] “..a list of directives for Fed examiners and supervisory staff across the country that significantly curtailed how closely they scrutinized lenders. It followed a host of changes made by Michelle W. Bowman [Trump appointee]..”
2] “current and former policy-makers and legal experts were already worried hat those changes would encourage exactly the kind of risk-taking that could sow the seeds for the next crisis….hat supervisors will be less equipped to spot such a crisis in advance, risking deeper damage to the economy.”
3]. “The memo also outlined changes that sought to limit the oversight power of two groups created by the Fed’s board after the 2008 financial crisis.” [stupidity, ideology, corruption?????]
4] “The Fed is not the only financial regulator undergoing upheaval to align with the Trump administration’s vision. The president wants more sway over how the central bank and other independent institutions, like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, oversee Wall Street.” [dictators do NOT want anybody to have ANY independence – their “vision’ is control]
5] “Another regulator, thre Consumer Financial Protection Bureau…has already been gutted.” [their ‘crime”? – they forced banks and other lenders to give back $20 billion to people like YOU!!! – we can’t have that!!!]

*** “The more lies are told, the more important it becomes for the liars to justify themselves by deep moral commitments to high-sounding objectives that mask the pursuit of money and power.” [ Bertram Gross ]

[NOTE: ask YOURSELF; Why do we have financial regulations? is it because we “hate banks and bankers”? is it because we’re jealous of rich people? Perhaps it’s because the world track record since at least the 1700s has DOCUMENTED the proclivity of “financial wizards,’ Wall Street, the banking industry of multiple countries, to take risks that blow up – and lead to destructive financial crises – of which 1929-41 is only the most documented for causes, suffering, results [like World War II].]

*** “Being ignorant is not so much Shame, as being unwilling to learn.” [ Benjamin Franklin ]