Tag: finance

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, CLXXVII. – Trump Further Blows Up The U.S. Tax System

~ tomdolen

***. “My megarich friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.” [Warren Buffett: “Please Tax Me. I Can Take It”; New York Times; 8/16/2011]

This post BEGINS to examine the CORRUPTION of the U.S. tax system. For much of its existence, the rich, connected, and corporations have sought to cheat on taxes. Like much else in post-1980 America, the corruption of “our” tax system has been driven by far-right ideologues, with much “encouragement” from the rich, and considerable help from a CORRUPT U.S. “supreme court” [legalized bribery]. Republicans are DOCUMENTED to have done most of this. Below are some excerpts of evidence explaining how the tax burden has been shifted on to ordinary citizens.

1] “The Republican tax plan would deliver a major benefit to the top 1 percent of Americans….Despite repeated promises from Republican lawmakers that the plan is designed to provide relief to the middle class, nearly 30 percent of taxpayers with incomes between $50,000 and $150,000 would see a tax increase….Meanwhile, the study found that 80 percent of the tax benefits would accrue to those in the top 12 percent.” [Carolyn Johnson: “Tax analysis: Tump plan gives little to middle”; Washington Post; 9/30/17]

2] “In 2027, 70 percent of middle-income taxpayers will get a tax hike. – but just 8 percent of those making more than $5 million will.” [Mother Jones; March-April, 2018]

3] “A report released March 24 projects that the IRS is set to lose over $500 billion in tax revenue over the next tax season as a result of actions taken by President Donald Trump and his top donor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency group..” [ “Dispatches”; The Progressive Populist; April 15, 2025 ]

4] “Trump administration to slash IRS staffing in half” …..”a significant cut that could jeopardize the agency’s ability to complete its basic mission of collecting taxes….while corporations and rich Americans may face less scrutiny from the thinly staffed tax agency.” [Andrew Duehren; New York Times; 3/5/25]

***. “The only reason God put Republicans on earth is to cut taxes.” [President of Club for Growth Stephen Moore; “Realtime with Bill Maher”; HBO; 4/25/ 2003]

5]. “The Trump administration claims gutting federal agencies will save money, but cutting the IRS means the government collects less taxes….Economic studies have shown that for every dollar spent by the IRS, the agency returns between $5 and $12….A 2024 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that the IRS found savings of $13,000 for every additional hour spent auditing the tax returns of very wealthy taxpayers..” The LB&I division, which has “the highest return on investment” was disproportionally going to be cut. [Andy Kroll: “How DOGE’s Cuts to the IRS Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save”; The Progressive Populist; April 1, 2025]

6] “Emails Reveal Top IRS Lawyer Warned Trump Firings Were a “FRAUD” on the Courts”. [Andy Kroll; The Progressive Populist; April 15, 2025]

7] “The turn away from audits of big partnerships is part of the IRS’s broader chaos, which has been accompanied by a slew of tax giveaways to industry in Trump’s new term. Big companies are benefitting from the gutting of regulations and the agency is pulling back from a crackdown on various shelters.” [ Jesse Drucker” “Push to audit private equity and venture capital falters”; New York Times; 1/1/26 ]

***. “Taxes: Making sure that the poor and middle-class pay their fair share of corporate handouts. “Tax Relief: “Relieving major corporations of any tax burden whatsoever so that they may reinvest their earnings in larger compensation packages for their CEO’s.” { “The Real Republican Dictionary” ]

8] “A team of academic economists and IRS researchers in 2021 found that the top 1% of U.S. income earners fail to report more than 20% of their earnings to the IRS.” [ Fatima Hussein: “IRS touts audits of rich tax dodgers”; Associated Press; 7/15/23 ]

9] ‘..a new study finds that at least 55 of America’s largest companies paid no U.S. taxes last year on billions of dollars in profits….Many also received millions of dollars in tax rebates.” [ Patrica Cohen: “At least 55 firms paid no U.s. taxes in 2020’; New York Times; 9/4/21 ]

10] “Firms move HQ overseas then exploit tax loophole”. [ Steven D. Solomon; New York Times; 2/15/16 ]

***. “Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.” [ Republican Rep. Tom Delay; 3/12/2003 ]

11]. !!!!!!!! READ. THIS – AND GET ANGRY. “The United states is losing approximately $1 trillion in unpaid taxes every year, Charles Rettig, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, estimated Tuesday, arguing that the agency lacks the resources to catch tax cheats….Most of the unpaid taxes are the result of evasion by the wealthy and large corporations, Rettig said.” [ Alan Rappeport; New York Times; 4/14/ 21 ]. [NOTE; this is the yearly debt interest payment !!!!! ]

12]. “Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the IRS hopes to increase audit rates on wealthy individuals to 2011 levels, before congressional Republicans slashed its budget for five consecutive years.” [ Jacob Bogage: “IRS aims for more audits of rich”; Washington Post Weekly; 4/9/23 ]

13]. “IRS to cut estate examiners. Bush administration to fire 157 lawyers, 17 others who audit wealthiest filers” [ David Cay Johnston; New York Times; 7/23/2006 ]

***. “The tax system is becoming a tool to turn the American dream of prosperity and reward for hard work into an impossible goal for tens of millions of Americans and into a nightmare for many others. Our tax system is being used to create a nation with fewer stable jobs and less secure retirement income. The tax system is being used by the rich, through their allies in Congress, to shift risks off themselves and unto everyone else. And perhaps worst of all, our tax system now forces most Americans to subsidize the lifestyles of the very rich, who enjoy the benefits of our democracy without paying their fair share of its price.” [ Double Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “Perfectly Legal” ]

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, 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 ]

The Trump DICTATORSHIP – Stupidity, Cruelty, Corruption, Craziness, LXII – Privatizing YOUR Government

~ tomdolen

*** “For one person alone to have the Government of a people in his hands, would be too great a Temptation. It tends to excite and draw forth Pride of man, to make him unsufferably haughty; it gives him too much liberty to exert his corruptions and it encourages him to become a Tyrant and an oppressor, to dispense with Laws and break the most solemn oaths.” [ John Barnard, 1746 ]

This post is built around Cullen Murphy’s “Feudalism Is Our Future,” The Atlantic; July, 2025. Read it VERY carefully. Among other crimes against America, the Trump DICTATORSHIP is working to dismantle YOUR government – to split off government functions and give them to private companies to do for profit. PRIVATIZATION, along with. DEREGULATION, have been two major Republican goals since at least 1981. This will mean less transparency, less accountability, less concern for YOUR civil rights. Feudalism was ended to give ordinary people – like YOU – more rights, income, respect. WHY should you be surprised that the Trump DICTATORSHIP would want to bring it back?

*** “The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.” [ John C. Calhoun ]

6] “As the pace of privatization picked up in the 21st century, the idea of “neo-feudalism” began to interest scholars and theorists….Most of the scholars are profoundly wary: They foresee an erosion of transparency, a disregard for individual rights, and a concentration of power among an ever smaller group of wealthy barons, even as the bulk of the population is relegated to service jobs that amount to a modern form of serfdom.” [read & think on this again]

11]. “Oversight more broadly – of the environment, food, drugs, finance – has been drifting for decades into the hands of those being overseen. In their 2021 book, The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian documented the loss of public control over water, roads, welfare, parks, and much else. The deliberate dismantling of government in America in recent months, and its replacement with something built on privatized power and networks of personal allegiance, accelerates what was long under way.” [read & THINK on this again, and again…]

*** “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of every good government.” [ Thomas Jefferson ]

1] “the Trump administration are beguiled by imperial Rome. They see themselves as interpreters of its lessons – beware immigration; uphold masculinity; make babies – and inheritors of its majesty.



2]. “More and more public functions are now likely to be outsourced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has bveen pushing for years to privatize health care for veterans…Mehmet Oz, has argued for privatizing Medicare – a program he now oversees. The administration has shown interest in taking apart the National Weather Service and spinning off some of its functions. It is looking into fully privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which underpin the nation’s mortgage industry.”

3]. “The president has floated the idea of privatizing the United States Postal Service. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order allowing the Justice Department to again send inmates to prisons run by private companies…He has promised to deport millions of undocumented people, and elements of that effort are being privatized. Politico reported this spring that investors led by Erik Prince….had sent a proposal to the White House arguing for the creation of a private military entity to set up “processing camps” and conduct roundups, possibly with the help of private citizens deputized to make arrests. The administration…did award a $151 million contract to the charter company CSI Aviation to operate deportation flights – an opportunity “too valuable not to pursue,” according to an executive of one of CSI’s subcarriers.”

4]. “In the 1980s and ’90s, privatization started gaining traction again….Anti-government sentiment created opportunities, and entrepreneurs seized them. Privatization was also pushed by policy makers who saw outsourcing as inherently more efficient….”

5] “..even before Trump took office a second time, there were roughly twice as many people employed by private contractors to do the federal government’s business as there were federal employees.” {!!!!! read this again !!!!! twice as many people ‘privatized” doing “government” work for private companies as real federal government employees. How many of the private company workers were targeted by the. DOGE BIG. FRAUD. to be eliminated???????]

*** “I think every nation has a right to establish that form of government under which it conceives it shall live most happy, provided it infracts no right or is not dangerous to others.” [ George Washington. ]

7] “Holding a monopoly of the money supply was once a hallmark of public power. In the span of a decade, private cryptocurrencies have undermined that control while at the same time enabling a wide range of illicit activities…In the U.S., Trump and his family are heavily involved in the crypto business. in April, the president announced that he would invite the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to a private dinner; the value of the meme coin rose within hours by 60 percent..”

8]. “A monopoly on the legitimate use of force – replacing the knights and pikemen of sundry vassals with professional standing armies – was another traditional hallmark of public power….Globe-spanning private military companies such as the Wagner Group and Triple Canopy recall the roving mercenary Landsknechte of yore….From 2007 to 2012, the U.S. alone spent $160 billion on private security contractors. Growing up alongside them – an industry even larger in size – are the private intelligence-gathering companies, such as Palantir, on which the U.S. spends a significant portion of its intelligence budget.”

9] “In the U.S., anyone with money and a need now hires private security guards, who outnumber police officers by a ratio of 2 to l. Among companies based in the U.S., the third-largest global employer – After Amazon and Walmart – is a private security firm, Allied Universal.”

10]. “Privatization has also upended the law. One example:….the growing use of compulsory arbitration, written by corporations into private contracts, as a way of settling consumer and employment disputes. The public court system is clogged. Arbitration – the “outsourcing of jurisprudence,”…- creates a parallel private system, one in which efficiency may be more highly valued than public oversight or due process.” [note – check the winners & losers under corporate forced arbitration procedures. who do YOU think the “judge’ is gonna be !!!!!!!!! ]

12]. “In 2008, desperate for cash, Chicago privatized its parking meters, selling off the rights to all the revenue for 75 years to a group of investors led by Morgan Stanley. A “true-up” provision requires the city to compensate investors for lost revenue when meters are taken out of service……………..The rights to operate toll highways have been sold off by some jurisdictions to private companies, including foreign ones. The fine print in the contracts often prevents improvements to adjacent roads on the grounds that such enhancements would create undue competition. Private prisons generally put a quota clause into their agreements. States and municipalities may be hoping….to reduce their prison populations, but the beds in private prisons must be filled regardless.” [read all this again – THIS – is “privatization”. in action. how much of this waste did DOGE end????????????]

13]. “Control and accountability are the bedrock……. in a privatized world, government becomes “diffuse, unstable, unpredictable.” and the skein of responsibility more and more attenuated. contractors hire subcontractors, who hire subcontractors of their own.”

*** “The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity, and to promote then happiness of all, and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, etc., without injury or abuse done to any.” [John Wise]