If It Quacks Like a Quack, Duck!

 Child Suffering from a vitamin A overdose

HHS Secretary who suggested vitamin A to treat measles

If It Quacks Like a Quack, Duck!

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary [RFK, Jr], but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.” 

 Dr Peter Marks, now terminated (resign or be fired) top vaccine official with the Food and Drug Administration

“RFK Jr.’s firing of Peter Marks because he wouldn’t bend a knee to his misinformation campaign now allows the fox to guard the hen house… It’s a sad day for America’s children.” 

 Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

 “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic… This Department will do more—a lot more—at a lower cost to the taxpayer.” 

 HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr. announcing a 10,000 HHS personnel cutback, including medical researchers and vaccine developers.

I am not sure how many American parents would prefer to go to a medical science skeptic, with no medical degree or certification, to treat their children, either preventively or for an obvious illness or disability. Perhaps those with religious precepts against using medications or medically advisable treatments… or blind adherents and lovers of conspiracy theories. That perspective may have changed when the President appointed, as the head of the nation’s Department of Health and Human Services, a medically untrained conspiracy theorist, vaccine skeptic. That appointment is a powerful endorsement. People believe in Trump. RFK, Jr is our medical tsar!

Yet, HHS Secretary, Robert F Kennedy, Jr (a disowned member of the powerful Kennedy family), had made recommendations prior to his appointment, followed in Samoa, suggesting skepticism over the safety of measles vaccines, that resulted in a major measles breakout (including fatalities) in that island nation… among unvaccinated individuals. As a result of a MAGA-sanctioned pattern, many school districts across America no longer mandate that list of vaccinations that most of us faced as a condition to entry to public elementary school so many years ago. As a result, diseases, which we believed had been eradicated here for a decade or much longer, are returning. Polio and measles are very recent examples. Among HHS discharged employees are NIH researchers seeking treatments and preventative measures for a whole host of diseases from new viruses to cancer and heart attacks as well as cutting edge doctors.

What’s worse, the few hired to replace some of the thousands of fired workers are the medically inadequate and science skeptics. Anti-vaxx champion Kennedy holds in disdain those who do not have “an open mind” to his skepticism, and if they express support without equal skepticism for even-well-proven vaccines, he fires them and replaces them with fellow skeptics.

Given hundreds of new cases of measles, particularly in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Ohio, etc., with fatalities including children, the lack of individuals getting vaccinated, particularly children, has been the direct and immediate cause of this outbreak and the speed at which it is spreading. RFK, Jr’s off-handed suggestions have including purposely exposing people to measles to develop “herd immunity” (potentially deadly advice) or to use vitamin A (beta carotene) to mitigate or prevent its effects. Exceptionally high levels of beta carotene are toxic, particularly to vulnerable children, as the above photograph reflects.

Indeed, this is the same RFK, Jr who stood with anti-vaxxers as they protested what they wrongfully claimed was a potentially deadly use of vaccines against COVID, which vaccines have absolutely been determined to have saved millions of lives around the world. One of those just dumped is most admired, Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration official who played a key role in the development of COVID-19 vaccines during the first Trump presidency and was the top vaccine expert at HHS; he quit after being told if he did not resign, he would be fired.

Marks’ letter to his immediate boss, acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner (who reports to RFK, Jr.), suggested a crisis of confidence in Kennedy – because Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic who spread bogus claims about their safety and advocated unsafe alternative treatments for dangerous conditions – literally contradicting Marks at the top of the department he ran. To Marks, it was RFK, Jr. who was not “open-minded.”

Indeed, Kennedy has never let go of the disproven theory that vaccines are a principal cause of autism, so very soon after his confirmation as HHS secretary, Kennedy directed the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to plan for a study to determine whether vaccines indeed cause autism As explained by James Felton, writing for the March 27th IFLScience, the reaction to Kennedy’s appointment of well-known and highly controversial vaccine skeptic David Geier to lead the new study was strongly negative among medical professionals. Felton noted that Geier was once disciplined by Maryland regulators for practicing medicine without a license.

“‘This is a worst-case scenario for public health,’ Jessica Steier, head of the nonprofit Science Literacy Lab, told the Washington Post , saying that Geier, along with his father Mark Geier, had ‘demonstrated patterns of an anti-vaccine agenda…It’s a slap in the face to the decades of actual credible research we have’… Vaccines are an astonishing achievement of modern science, saving an estimated 154 million lives (including 101 million infants) over the last 50 years, according to a major study led by the World Health Organization last year. Of these, the measles vaccine (often grouped with mumps and rubella in the MMR jab) is the biggest contributor, accounting for around 60 percent of the lives saved by vaccination.

“But unfortunately, over the last few decades, skepticism about vaccines has risen, largely stemming from a now-retracted study that claimed there was a connection between autism and the MMR vaccine…In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a paper based on just 12 children that linked the MMR vaccine to autism. The results have not been replicated, and it later transpired that he had falsified data, for which his medical license was revoked.

"‘The Lancet completely retracted the Wakefield et al. paper in February 2010, admitting that several elements in the paper were incorrect, contrary to the findings of the earlier investigation. Wakefield et al. were held guilty of ethical violations (they had conducted invasive investigations on the children without obtaining the necessary ethical clearances) and scientific misrepresentation (they reported that their sampling was consecutive when, in fact, it was selective),’ a report into the case explains.

"The final episode in the saga is the revelation that Wakefield et al. were guilty of deliberate fraud (they picked and chose data that suited their case; they falsified facts). The British Medical Journal has published a series of articles on the exposure of the fraud, which appears to have taken place for financial gain." This is consistent with Trump’s pattern of appointing less than competent individuals, often with most obvious conflicts of interest, to administration posts seriously impacting the lives and well-being of vast swaths of Americans.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if playing fast and loose with our nations military secrets or tanking our economy at unprecedented speed were not enough, now we can see that Trump’s appointments can foment policies that can actually kill you.

US vs China, Both Lose, But Who Blinks First?

US vs China, Both Lose, But Who Blinks First?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Almost every economic move Trump makes registers almost instant rejection by the financial community. Trump announces a tariff-driven economic policy. Stocks fall hard. Trump announces an electronic exemption to Chinese exports to the US. Stocks rise. Was that a “blink”? China sure thinks so. He announces a 90 day pause on the rest. Stocks rise. He still maintains that 10% minimum and absurdly high tariffs on the rest of Chinese imports. Stocks fall. Trump attacks the wildly respected Fed Chair, Jerome Powell. Stocks plunge. Trump stops pursing Powell. Stocks rise. The dollar reaches new lows against most foreign currencies. US treasuries, those bonds that finance our deficit, are being dumped into the marketplace, and interest rates on treasuries soar to maintain the market. Stocks fall. Powell and most of the top financial institutions predict an increasing likelihood of that dreaded “stagflation,” where the economy contracts but prices continue to rise.

Trump’s economic Rasputin, Peter “I love tariffs” Navarro, is uniformly rejected by the mainstream financial world, and it is clear that the underlying instability introduced to our economy by Donald Trump may be significantly irreversible. China’s President Xi Jinping, echoing sentiments from fellow autocrats around the world, has repeatedly stated that he believes the United States’ will self-destruct, yielding economic and political primacy to China. The United States, based simply on Trump’s policy choices, will, in Xi’s opinion, rapidly create a seriously damaged, also-ran, has-been, isolated US with a currency that will soon be rejected as the global reserve currency, the value metric that has government commodity and GDP pricing for decades.

And no, we have not been “ripped off” by getting quality cheap goods, any more than any US department store having a “sale” is “ripping” off American consumers. Consumers have been the big winners when goods are less expensive. We seem to forget that we have not been a manufacturing company for decades, and that our soaring mega-successful economy comes from the fact that 80% of non-government employment and value creation has come from our service sector (design, engineering, financial structuring, copyrights, patents, software design, etc.). The United States will never be primarily a manufacturing nation, and what little growth is even possible may well be mostly relegated to AI-enabled automation.

So it’s China vs the US. China has the autocratic ability to withstand pain a whole lot better than does the United States, but neither side is well-situated to endure the hardships that a trade war between these two nations will impose. In fact, it is this particular two-nation dispute that seems to be the primary motivation for Trump’s overall “fun with Dick and Jane” tariff battle. The second line, in Trump’s negotiations with smaller economies, is to force them to cut back trade with China. As for the larger nations, Trump believes his divide and conquer strategy – making even larger countries pick sides, and if they do not pick the US, retribution rises – will isolate China and benefit the US. But almost everything Trump embraces, from tariffs and trade restrictions to cruel and severely punitive immigration policies, is clearly isolating the United States and alienating its traditional allies. Writing for the April 22nd Wall Street Journal, Micah McCartney explains:

“‘The United States already missed a great chance to help form an anti-PRC [People's Republic of China] trade coalition when it left the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017,’ Sean King, Asia scholar and senior vice president at Park Strategies, told Newsweek, referring to a trade group Trump quit shortly after taking office.

“While many countries friendly to the United States hope to reduce reliance on trade with China, they may not trust Trump not to reach his own bilateral deal with Beijing and leave them in the lurch ‘especially, as he so often reminds the world, how much he likes and respects Xi Jinping,’ King added… ‘Until we stop picking needless fights with our friends and allies, I sadly think it's going to be every country for itself.’

“Independent economist Andy Xie believes China is better prepared to dig in for the long haul compared to during Trump's first term… ‘Over the last six years, I think people have become more and more confident because there are all these tech sanctions. Most were broken through. And in terms of software, the substitutes for Android, for Windows...are all there,’ he told CNBC….’[...] So that's why it's willing to negotiate, play hardball with the U.S. and it's willing to risk a complete decoupling with the U.S.’…

“To further turn up the heat on China, Trump administration officials are pressuring over 70 U.S. trade partners to scale back trade with the world's second-largest economy and even introduce their own tariffs, The Wall Street Journal wrote last week, citing sources familiar with the discussions… This strategy—reportedly backed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—is meant to be a force multiplier that could further bite China's economy—which has been grappling with slowing growth, lackluster domestic demand, and a long-running housing market crunch. That could force Beijing to negotiate…

“But rather than negotiating, Chinese President Xi Jinping is in the midst of a charm offensive, seeking to rally support from nearby Southeast Asia to Europe… After years of aligning more closely with the United States on China over concerns about national security and over alleged Chinese industrial oversupply, some U.S. allies in Europe are pushing back against Washington and even signaling they're considering a relative thaw in trade relations with China… ‘China is the second biggest economy in the world, and it would be, I think, very foolish to not engage. That's the approach of this government,’ U.K. finance chief Rachel Reeves told The Telegraph.”

So what now? On April 23rd, Trump suggested that the tariff war with China will be negotiated (perhaps such discussions have already begun). Trump took the first step, because Xi never would. But immediately following his optimistic trade statement, in an impromptu press meeting in the White House maintenance yard, Trump resumed his tough talk on stopping virtually the entire world from “ripping us off,” a riff that would make any company on Earth that had a sale or discount an equally “rip off” culprit. Donald: Manufacturing quality products and exporting them to the US so consumers can afford them is not “ripping off” consumers, particularly since we are primarily a service economy. It is a major part of Wal*Mart’s and Costco’s core business plan.

On a global level, and increasingly within the United States, by reason of Trump’s erratic economic policies, added to the particular failures of DOGE and RFK, Jr’s negation of medical science, Trump is seriously damaged goods. Can he recover? Can he avoid voter retribution through rising autocracy? Can the United States recover? Is China smirking through its own economic pain?

I’m Peter Dekom, and as Trump stumbles, mistake after mistake, I wonder and worry if Xi’s vision of America may actually become our reality.

Chaos Theory, Our American Cultural Revolution, One Man Rule

 

Chaos Theory, Our American Cultural Revolution, One Man Rule

A King, with his own Rasputin, Enforcer & Sub-Par Loyalist Advisors

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Can you guess the cast of characters? Outlier, mad-economist Peter Navarro is the Rasputinesque “tariff whisperer,” Elon Musk is the “deep state” killer and “I’ll Primary You Out of Office” MAGA $$ enforcer and the “screw the Constitution” litany of “we report only to the king” cabinet and sub-cabinet level appointees, led by a bizarre anti-science skeptic, an Attorney General who holds the Constitution itself in contempt and the clumsy Fox Opinion host with no discernible military skills, as the tip of the loyalist iceberg watching as the USA Titanic approaches. To think that the only significant resistance to this cadre of “America destroyers” are a disarray of courts fuming as their appellate-sustained orders have been ignored and a bastion of academic excellence that is vastly older than the United States itself: Harvard University.

I tried to articulate the growing list of what hates the most, and without any particular order, here goes: poor people, higher education, facts, science, anyone or any media that oppose anything he champions, taxes on the rich, federal courts, Democrats, “loser” members of the military, NATO, Ukraine, the European Union, China, California, NY courts, and once again poor people (the drainers of benefits that should be stopped to fund tax cuts for the rich). Whew! I am sure you can think of more, but that’s a good start. Trump defeat and humiliate China? Good luck with that Mr. Trump… as most of the rest of the world would now rather deal with China than you!

Even though there is zero chance that Trump’s tariff scheme, if it even sustains, would work as he envisions, that the cruelty evidenced in Trump’s unilateral determination who should be deported to a possible life sentence in a horrific Salvadoran prison will soon be forgotten, Trump has purposely positioned the United States as an isolated, go-it-alone nation with an unstable, non-genius in charge. He punishes those under his control viciously if they utter a sound against him.

Using flimsy reasoning based on centuries old wartime statutes, Trump has trashed the Constitution, abolished the rule of law, and become the sole decider of tax policies (relegated by the Constitution to Congress), the abrogation of long-standing treaties (from NATO and trade treaties to the Paris Climate Accords), all things “citizenship” and “immigration,” and the enforcer of mega-ambiguous (ill-defined) cultural concepts like “woke” instruction and books, “DEI” policies and “entitlements.” Trump as “Chairman Mao” with a cultural revolution?

Did this happen overnight? Even within the first 100 days of being elected, Trump has approval levels lower (at the same point in their administration) than any other president since polls have been conducted. Yet Trump is nothing more than an affirmation that this country is run by and for the “show me the money” mega-millionaires/billionaires (some of whom are in his cabinet). To the extent there are any challengers to that plutocratic vector, Trump is there to root them out. As King, Trump has named himself as the waiver granter, evidenced in exceptions to tariffs and regulatory statutes accorded disproportionately to his major campaign contributors. As he faced too much opposition to the outright repeal or significant benefit reduction of Social Security, Medicare, VA and Medicaid, the solution was simple: send Musk’s storm troopers to decimate the staffing, computer systems and supporting infrastructure that makes those social programs work. Musk the champion of waste and fraud reduction? Did I tell you the one about the Easter Bunny? Using chainsaws is not a particularly good approach to securing effective government.

The Supreme Court, until literally weeks ago, was most complicit in this attack on representative democracy. By elevating money above justice (e.g., the uncapping of SuperPAC campaign contributions in Citizens United v FEC), allowing politicians to exclude voters who might oppose them (e.g., Shelby vs Holder), enabling white supremacy (e.g., Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina) and empowering presidential rule (e.g., US vs Trump, which established far-reaching presidential immunity). Truly a sad unraveling.

Sure, post-WWII Republican President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation of the “military industrial state,” but today that massive lobbying effort (well-staffed with retired senior military officers) has a significant military vendor in virtually every congressional district… making cuts in the military budget close to impossible; the military budget is over 3% of our overall GDP, which is the functional equivalent of the rest of operational federal government combined. While the federal bureaucracy has, until Musk’s chainsaw, remained roughly the same for 30 years, the deficit and the military budget have grown.

Indeed, lobbying is huge business, particularly in a kleptocracy where individuals are awarded lucrative contracts – take a good close look at how much money Elon Musk’s companies generate from federal contracts… and how Tesla wouldn’t even exist today if not for massive government subsidies and loans early in that company’s history – and exemptions from regulations they do not like. With members of the House in perpetual pursuit of campaign contributions (they all have two-year terms) and the high stakes in Senate seats (where Wyoming with 600,000 residents has the same two Senators that does California with 39 million residents), that infamous K-Street cadre of exceptionally well-funded lobbyists has been calling political shots for virtually every moment since WWII.

Even before Donald Trump, the prestigious The Economist had relabeled the United States as a “flawed democracy” with an “unrepresentative” form of government. Trump’s implementation of his Project 2025 agenda since inauguration has resulted in disapproval levels that now exceed approval levels. Can Trump even afford to let the approaching misterms happen, where his MAGA majority in each house of Congress is at stake, unless he can: rig the election (through voter exclusion and redistricting) or, through some reliance on some inapplicable wartime emergency power, delay or eliminate that election? And exactly how will he exacerbate the current constitutional crisis by escalating his scoff-law defiance of federal court orders (even the US Supreme Court), to many the last hope of saving our American democracy. 

I’m Peter Dekom, and the seeming hope of keeping America as a democracy may just lie in more angry town halls and increasing the number of peaceful but very angry mass protests everywhere.

Is There a Shot the Trump’s Tariffs Will Elicit the Deals He Seeks?

  

Is There a Shot the Trump’s Tariffs Will Elicit the Deals He Seeks?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

As I have learned by over half a century negotiating high dollar and high-profile transactions in the shark-invested waters of the entertainment industry, if you start hard, you damned well better have the negotiating power to shove the deal down your opposite number’s throat. It is a whole lot easier to escalate from reasonableness than to try and sink your teeth into the negotiator on the other side at the beginning. For those who are not used to bullies, they may not take your fang-leading effort at face value… or they may believe you are all show but lack the staying power inherent in your initial hostile approach. I’ve enjoyed enough bullies to be able to smile.

It get’s worse if you have multiple simultaneous negotiations based on the same subject matter. If you have the bargaining power across the board, you can even tilt the numbers upon which the negotiations are based in your favor. Trade deficit values in tariff negotiations is like a dentist grinning and holding pliers and a power drill before a minor procedure, especially when the “patient” doesn’t want dental work and is equally as powerful as you may be.

Comparing apples to apples works only so far. But if one country makes tons of money from services-based businesses, digital platforms and financial/banking structures, if you just look at one sector of trade (like goods sold which may define the other party), you can create a case for trade deficit-based tariffs… but it obviously is a flawed basis. The more additional variables you can add, the more you can justify bully demands. But Canada as a major source of fentanyl? Huh?

And woe to those you are trying to intimidate who are powerful and willing to push back really harder! China has told Mr. Trump to “bring it on,” and the EU is contemplating applying the Anti-Coercion laws which contain the ability to deny EU access to the offending nation and its companies. How happy would Google and Facebook feel if they were banned from continental Europe… or if US banks and other financial institutions were banned from accessing the EU markets at all? Or what if China froze all the electronic components America carmakers and manufacturers of sophisticated electronic systems? Or began dumping lots of its US dollar reserves to undercut the value of dollar way below what Trump hoped for.

So let me answer the title question very simply. While a finesse player who really understood trade deficits, one not attempting to take on the whole world, began this effort with sensible goals, perhaps. But braggadocio Trump tends to burn his bridges before he tries to cross on them… so simply, while Trump may score a couple of victories, NO… We are now a global pariah facing a vast wall of anger and retribution. I suspect you will be able to book rooms for 2028 Olympics really inexpensively.

I’m Peter Dekom, and how would you like it if most of the rest of the world were furious and waiting to get you, your companies and your citizens; well, they ARE?

Federal Employees – Hard-Working Human Beings or Lazy Villains?

  OR

Federal Employees – Hard-Working Human Beings or Lazy Villains?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Spoiler alert: My mother, my father, my stepfather, my uncle and my son were all federal employees who worked their butts off, both in their Washington, D.C. HQs and, when posted overseas, worked even longer hours. Each was specially trained, often highly-educated with advanced degrees and usually multilingual. The more senior they got, the longer their work hours. I admit to having a summer job at a US embassy between high school and college; I had to get to the local Beirut (Lebanon) airport by 5 am on Sundays to deliver and pick-up materials shipped to and from the local US embassy… and no, that did not generate extra pay or result in being credited against the rest of my work week. I met the US aircraft on the tarmac.

When my stepfather was on overseas assignment (which included the Austro-Hungarian border during the Soviet invasion in 1956), stints in Bombay (now Mumbai), Beirut, Antwerp (Belgium), and Saigon (Vietnam, during the War), he was on call 24/7. He spoke French, German, Hungarian and Hindi fluently. My mother spoke Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian (her native tongue), French, German and grammatically perfect English. My father (who worked as a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill) was fluent in Italian, German, Hungarian and French. I once was fluent in French, German and could swear like a trooper in Arabic (and carry on a limited conversation in that language). My son was an investment officer at the US Department of Energy, an MBA/CFA, who spoke fluent math and was (is) an expert in business analytics. We just weren’t used to lazy, under-educated government sloths. And for those who worked with us who were in the military or the intelligence agencies, long hours were the absolute rule! Pride, commitment & dignity!!!

So, I watched with horror the demonization of the entire federal bureaucracy as if these civil servants did not care or did the least they needed to do to get by. Most do not work the DOGE “nerd ours,” but their efficiency at their jobs always impressed me. Through my experience with federal employees, most were certainly able to secure better-paying jobs in the private sector but chose public services as an honorable profession, tenured with job security and a good chance for advancement. The majority of federal bureaucrats were veterans, who simply wanted to continue their commitment to government service. My stepfather, who worked his way up to Army major working in the Office of Strategic Services, which led many to continue with the CIA or the Department of State… chose the latter and also transferred to the Air Force (newly formed under President Harry Truman) as a Lt Colonel in the Reserves.

Over the years, I came to realize that the federal bureaucracy created both legacy standards, continuity between and among political changes and literally served as a shock absorber to prevent political whimsey and unworkable political decisions that would have unraveled government efficiency, reliability and the predictability required of international relations. As you might guess, our allies came to count on a self-sustaining military and bureaucratic consistency to keep our alliances healthy yet flexible. What I am now witnessing is our allies’ and veterans’ worst nightmare: the hyper-accelerating destruction of our political state, the breaking of pledges and treaties that held most of our world on a steady path, one that fostered the greatest economic success the world had ever seen. What is left is a combination of oligarchs’ grabbing power, the destabilization of decades and decades of bipartisan policies and practices, and destruction without a plan for what was to replace the decimation of America.

We’ve been here before, even in my lifetime, but our wayward self-destructive urges were tempered by sober bureaucrats and stopped by a commitment to ethics and integrity that seems long gone today. It was the 1950s, and the “red scare” (the fear of the infiltration of communists into to every aspect of our nation, from government to our cultural enjoyment) redefined who we thought we were. It was the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). All it took to end a creative career or get a bureaucrat fired was a raw accusation of communist leanings.

Writing for the March 31st Los Angeles Times, Berkeley Law Professor, Catherine Fisk, reacted badly “at the callousness of Elon Musk talking about taking a ‘chain saw’ to agencies and Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, saying he wants government employees to be ‘traumatically affected’ and ‘viewed as villains.’” Among those fired without genuine cause was her mother: “Making trauma for government employees a policy goal is horrific. I know, because I grew up in a home where that trauma hung in the air like smoke from the cigarettes chain-smoked by my mother — a civil servant fired without cause in the McCarthy era.

“The ongoing mass firings of federal employees (over 100,000 at last count), arrests of activists and attacks on universities [today] have rightly been compared to the Red Scare of the 1950s… Now, as then, people are being fired without a semblance of due process on baseless allegations of disloyalty or incompetence. Now, as then, the firings are inflicting trauma for those who are fired. Now, as then, the goal is to instill fear in those who remain. During the Red Scare, my mother was fired from a federal job on false charges of disloyalty. She never recovered.

“Like many of today’s civil servants, my mother loved her job. She graduated from UC Berkeley at the end of World War II with a degree in international relations and a desire to help build the postwar order. She went to Washington, D.C., thrilled to work for an agency that valued her expertise in Soviet politics and facility with languages. A week before she was to depart for a two-year post in Berlin, her assignment was suddenly canceled. Someone accused her of being a communist because she had been seen with Russian emigres. She explained that her Russian acquaintances were anti-communists who had fled the country after the 1917 revolution, and she socialized with them to perfect colloquial Russian… The government rejected her and everything she had studied for and worked to achieve. She lost self-confidence. She succumbed to self-pity, and then quickly apologized for it. Her letters expressed anxiety, depression and fear about money.

“Her letters describe the struggle to find another job that valued her skills. Some of her skills could not be used in the private sector. Even the transferable knowledge was useless in an era when most companies would hire women only as secretaries. Plus, as her letters prove, she was a mediocre typist. Her savings dwindled. She gave up her apartment and moved in with friends. Finally, she abandoned her career, accepted my father’s offer of marriage and became an unhappy housewife in a small Southern California college town… Eventually she found a job teaching in a community college. But she never found another job that used her knowledge and training, and she never overcame the feelings of loss, grief and rejection. Her faith in her country had been shaken.”

Waste, the real government waste, and sadness were what was unwarranted. The corruption, then as now, was in the accusers. Lives were ruined. Today, the damage from the Trump/Musk cabal will take decades to repair, if indeed the damage is even reparable. Those early in their government careers are likely to find new lives, new opportunities. For those in the middle or later part of their careers, they have been abandoned in a flurry of wildly inaccurate conspiracy theories promulgated by those with a greedy agenda… or others simply looking for someone to blame for the decline in their ability to achieve their own expectations.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I find little sympathy for the insensitive chainsaw wielding sociopaths who are obviously not remotely going to deliver a better America, instead leaving a path of cruel brutality in their wake… destroying the greatest nation on earth.

The Big Trump Enemy Left to Be Cut Down to Size: the Judiciary

 

The Big Trump Enemy Left to Be Cut Down to Size: the Judiciary

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

“The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.” 

7-2 Supreme Court Order, early April 19th, effective immediately

Relatively “mild” attacks against this institution have been there since the start of Trump 2.0. You can start with the violent January 6, 2021 mob that attacked the Capitol, resulting in serious injuries and death, including vicious attacks on police officers… all caught on video to eliminate any doubt. The blanket pardon of these convicted felons was the first round of Trump’s rejecting the decisions of the courts; violence in support of Trump was now justified. The rule of law took a hard upper cut to the jaw. It was a message to any court that might want to temper violent support for King Trump.

The next Trump live grenade Trump tossed into the cauldron of rising intolerance and seething hatred was the appointment of cabinet members, all prepared to put loyalty to Donald Trump above all else. Trump uber-loyalist, AG Pam Bondi, made sure that the DOJ was purged of any senior counsel who had taken a position against Trump, even if so ordered by their superiors. The DOJ was now Trump’s personal law firm. Homeland Security head, Kristi Noem (not a lawyer) also embraced the harsh “deport gang members fast without trial” edict of both Donald Trump and Border Tsar, Tom Homan. Bondi, through the Trump DOJ law team, pushed her staff into defending any and all attempts to insert due process into the system, readily accepting that 1798 wartime Alien Enemies Act was within Trump’s if he declared an “invasion,” oddly at a time when border crossings from Mexico were at an all-time low. Where was that invasion again?

While Elon Musk wasn’t really saving taxpayers any money, the once powerful federal agencies were being defunded, and bureaucrats were fired by the tens of thousands. Musk ensured that federal agencies no longer had the power to contain Trump’s ambitions. Stripping as many powerful law firms as Trump could limited the quality of super-competent legal counsel from challenging Trump under constitutional restrictions. Matt Laslo, wring for the April 20th Raw Story, explains how Trump is pressuring his House majority to cut the federal judiciary, purportedly an equal branch of government, at the knees:

“Dismantling the federal government won’t be complete without upending the judicial branch — or so many conservatives argue, which is why rank-and-file Republicans are pressuring party leaders to fall in line and join White House efforts to purge the nation’s judiciary… Before Congress left town for its two-week Easter recess, Speaker Mike Johnson tried to placate his right flank by ushering a bill restricting national injunctions through the House. Party leaders have also promised hearings.

“None of that’s good enough for many rank-and-file Republicans, especially because President Donald Trump and his agency-gutting sidekick Elon Musk have tossed their support behind fringe-right proposals to impeach federal judges… ‘ There’s gotta be accountability,’ Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) told Raw Story. ‘If we can't impeach them, we should defund them.’… The two-term Congressman is one of five Republicans who’ve authored seven separate articles of impeachment targeting six judges. All in the first three months of this new Congress…

“Musk has been the face of the Trump administration’s purge efforts, but even a billionaire’s powers are limited… The wealthiest man in the world has been dropping millions to reshape the nation’s courts in his laissez faire, if corporate-focused image, but even Republican eyes rolled after his failed, high-profile effort to tilt the recent record-shattering Wisconsin Supreme Court contest. But, when he’s not handing out oversized $1 million checks, Musk’s been attacking the nation’s judiciary from the shadows.

“Newly released campaign finance reports reveal Musk has been quietly padding Republicans’ campaign coffers. Well, at least the accounts of far-right Republicans who’ve been targeting federal judges who rule against Trump and DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency.” That nasty Constitution didn’t mention funding, but …. Even when an individual, legally in the United States, fell into the deportation to a horrible prison in El Salvador (where the US was paying for incarceration), the “Trump administration has said that once individuals are outside of U.S. jurisdiction, there is little they can do to bring them back to the United States…

“Trump and his top advisors met in the Oval Office with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and were almost gleeful in saying nothing could be done to return any of the prisoners once they had left the U.S… The [Supreme Court] had said the administration had a duty to ‘facilitate’ the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported in error to El Salvador.” Rachel Uranga, Andrea Castillo and David G. Savage for April 20th Los Angeles Times. Even as Abrego Garcia was transferred to a lesser prison facility after he was visited by a US Senator, the Trump administration dawdled, delaying and asking for clarification for an order that was obvious to everyone else.

Indeed, over Easter weekend, as the Trump administration prepped for planeloads of purported members of a violent Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (so designated by ICE without tangible proof presented to a neutral tribunal), the Supreme Court intervened issuing the order cited above. The litigation, brought by the ACLU, was forced to dive into the deportation process based on reports from detainees like these:

“ACLU lawyers argued that the move was necessary because officials at Bluebonnet told detainees they will be deported and asked them to sign notices of removal in English based on their alleged affiliation with Tren de Aragua… One man at the facility sent his wife a TikTok video depicting detainees, according to a declaration submitted by ACLU lawyers from Michelle Brané, executive director of a nonprofit that provides services for asylum seekers. In it, one young man says they are all being labeled as members of Tren de Aragua. They aren’t allowed to call their families, and the detainees don’t know where they will be removed to, he says in the video… ‘They’re saying we have to be removed, quickly, because we are a terrorist threat to the country,’ he says.

“Another detainee says they were given a paper to sign but were told that, whether they signed or not, they would be removed from the country… A third detainee says, ‘We are not members of Tren de Aragua. We are normal, civil people.’… A fourth says, ‘I don’t have a deportation order. I have all my paperwork in order. I have my American children here,’ he says. ‘I was arrested with no arrest warrant and they want me deported.’” LA Times.

Yet the various “whatever Trump says” cabinet loyalists railed against the court, saying that it was participating in keeping violent gang members in the United States, despite an overwhelming popular sentiment supporting quick deportation. But that is not remotely what the ACLU or the Supreme Court were saying. Simply, just declaring someone to be a guilty criminal is not enough under our Constitution, to imprison them. All individuals are accorded a right to defend themselves before a neutral court. Otherwise, the federal government could dispense with criminal trials whatsoever simply by attaching the right label to the relevant detainee, which to Trump, could be US citizen as well.

I’m Peter Dekom, what is bothering me even more is that Donald Trump is attempting to use the battle of deportation as a distraction against his utterly failed set of economic policies that are increasingly showing that the damage he alone created is just beginning.

Red State American, Blue State American or Just Plain American?

   

Red State American, Blue State American or Just Plain American?

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

“What Trump does not understand about anything, is that he thinks you can call somebody all kinds of names, and then you make peace and just move on. Well, that person you’ve just called all those names is your enemy for life. He may not say it, but he thinks it.” 

 Former Obama economic advisor and current fund manager, Steve Rattner, Puck.com, April 17th

The difference between the pre-WWII “America First” movement and the current Trump iteration revolves around the fact that, until Donald Trump attempted to bully the rest of the world under this tariff/trade war attacks, the post-WWII United States led the world (at least the democracy-driven Western world) in military power, economic leadership, wealth and global influence. Cheap goods were not “ripping us off,” any more than a sale at Macy’s is ripping off consumers. But words matter, insults against our allies followed by harsh tariffs matter, and the fierce isolation, that Trump mounted in his iteration of “America First,” has redefined the United States of America as an arrogant, untrustworthy bully, wildly successful in casting itself as an isolationist nation going it alone. If there’s a post-Trump recapture of trust and viable alliances, it will be a long time coming.

As Trump seems to have burned down so many bridges to the rest of the world, most of it in just under 100 days, what happened? In an interview on The Good Fight (Substack, April 19th), Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard University, 71st Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and the Director of the National Economic Council for President Obama, presented this 30,000-foot view of the United States after this recent transformation: “There are set patterns that we associate with developing countries, for which some people would use the term ‘banana republic.’

“In mature democracies, it's institutions that dominate; in banana republics, it's personalities that dominate. In mature democracies, it's the rule of law that governs interactions between businesses and between business and government; in emerging markets, it’s personalities, personal connection, and loyalty. In mature democracies, the central bank and finance sits with independence relative to politics; in emerging markets, that is much more in question. In mature democracies, the goal is interaction, openness, and prospering along with the world; in immature democracies, in emerging markets, it is nationalist economic policies tied to particular interests.

“The United States in a stretch of a few short months is transforming from being the United States to being something much more like Juan Perón's Argentina—and that is being recognized by markets. It's being recognized in the economy. It's being recognized by people.

“The market version of it comes from looking at patterns. In the United States, traditionally when stocks go down, that's because the world is riskier and less certain. So bond yields go down as well, people rush to buy bonds, and the dollar goes up, as people in a more uncertain environment seek safety in the dollar.

“There's a different pattern. It's the pattern of emerging markets. It's the pattern that prevailed very briefly in the United States before Paul Volcker was appointed to the central bank during the Carter administration. It's the everything-goes-together pattern. Stocks go down, bond yields go up, the currency goes down. We now have that pattern in markets in the United States. But that's the market version of it.”

The global reaction is to create new workarounds against US economic hegemony, create new trade alliances that exclude the United States and challenge the supremacy of the US dollar (now perceived as “risky”) and the financial trading platforms that are/were controlled by major US financial institutions. Nation by nation, the world is turning its back to the United States. There’s no going back… for a very long time, If ever. China is delighted! They plan on resisting the US… no matter what it takes. And they can play dirty, very dirty.

Inside the United States, clearly and knowingly provoking a power struggle to take the US Supreme Court down a notch, Trump is using his generally popular immigration policy massively to revoke student visas, to assert his “anti-woke” agenda to clamp down on universities, law firms and even medical journals, asserting a level of censorship that flies in the face of our First Amendment. Claiming the ability to alter “American born citizenship,” insisting that centuries old war power statutes (as well as the President’s right to control “foreign affairs”) give him the power to deport, without due process, any foreign-born US resident (and perhaps even US citizens who are critical of his policies). The courts, showing deference to presidential policy-setting rights, have given Trump enough wiggle room to delay. But the confrontation, that constitutional crisis is upon us. Trump even insists that he is not required to answer the federal court’s questions.

I remember when “Southern hospitality” was open and amazing, less so for African Americans, but in today’s world, if you are in a deep red state at a white-owned establishment, you may not want to tell them that you are visiting from California or New York. The moment will change as they try to be nice but are fighting their revulsion at your presence. Unfortunately, there are red state Americans and blue state Americans, and even when they attempt to listen to each other, there is a deep disconnect.

Young men, seeking a new masculine identity, are more likely to follow “man-up” influencers and podcasts than any other form of media. “Teachers are raising concerns about the detrimental influence of social media personalities , such as Andrew Tate , on student behaviour, citing a rise in misogyny and sexism within schools… A recent survey conducted by the NASUWT teaching union revealed that nearly three in five teachers (59 per cent) believe social media contributes to the declining behaviour of students.” The Independent, April 19th. These younger voters, here and across the Pond, cannot be reached by traditional media, not even Fox News. What’s wrong with just being an “American”?

Trump’s version of the Russian Tsar’s Rasputin appears to be Harvard educated “economist,” Peter “I love tariffs” Navarro, who is generally considered an economic whack-job by virtually all credible economists. An outlier with dangerous influence. And while a prudently applied tariff has it place in global economics, the major American institutions, including the Federal Reserve, believe Trump’s unstable, on-again/off-again mega-tariffs are leading us straight into an ignoble period of stagflation. Tourism is sliding down fast. Canadians are cancelling their US vacations in droves (as are other nations’ travelers); many are listing their US properties for sale. Exactly, who would be dumb enough to attend the 2028 Olympics? Hotel or a holding tank?

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are an increasing number of trained psychologists who are beginning to question whether our self-proclaimed “stable genius” is indeed mentally “stable” without even having to answer the “genius” claim.

Don’t Be Happy, Worry!

Don’t Be Happy, Worry!

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Ok, this is hard blog to write when so many people, particularly our fearful leaders, delight in making masses of people miserable. “I’m right, and you’re wrong” seems unavoidable where divide and conquer is the American philosophy du jour. Ooops, I used a foreign word… how un-American of me. The Germans have a word for delighting in the misery of others (they would, wouldn’t they?), but it also has been coopted to English: schadenfreude. Another foreign word! But I began thinking of how Americans measure their success. Start with Gross Domestic Product? But the rich at the top of the food chain can make the whole picture look rosy.

How about the stock market as an index of American wellbeing? After all, over 60% of American families own stock. But those with significant holdings tend to be rich and white. “Ownership of stock is concentrated among those with higher incomes. That is hardly a surprise as investing in stocks or mutual funds requires money. Some 92% of those in the top 10% of the income ladder owned stock in 2019 compared to 56% of those considered middle class. When it comes to owning stocks directly, families in the top 10% of earnings accounted for 44% compared to only 12% of the middle class and 5% of those in the bottom quintile.

“Looking at net worth rather than income, a total of 94% of those whose net worth placed them in the top 10% of wealth distribution owned stocks in 2019. Of families whose net worth was in the bottom 25%, 21% owned stock in some form… Families in the top 10% of incomes held 70% of the value of all stocks in 2019, with a median portfolio of $432,000.” USA Today (5/15/21). We don’t care about these metrics: job security, vacation time, working hours, healthcare, per capita income, mental health, infant mortality… what?! And current administration policies are good at jiggering with statistics. Like, did you know that the government has stopped measuring Tesla battery fires. I wonder why?

By all these hard dollar metrics, the United States is a wild success. But even before the spew of executive orders and the threat from rich fat cats, seeking even more tax cuts, intent on crushing retirement and health benefits under Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – in a world where the United States is an outlier among developed countries where universal healthcare is standard – Americans numbered among the least happy developed nations on earth, falling even below a number of less-developed countries.

So, the White House-excluded Associated Press, with writers in Europe (Kirsten Grieshaber and Kostya Manenkov), reported in its Marth 20th edition, on the relative “happiness” quotient across nations around the world. Using surveys from average citizens applying their own national cultural vision of happiness, wealth seldom seemed determinative, as it seems to be here. Finland, freezing cold and sharing a border with avaricious Russia, came in first. The United States hit its lowest point since this EU-based survey has been conducted, at a sad 24th. If anything, we are living in an increasingly lonely world where more people feel cut off from support and viable social contacts.

“Country rankings were based on answers people give when asked to rate their own lives. The study was done in partnership with the analytics firm Gallup and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network… ‘Happiness isn’t just about wealth or growth — it’s about trust, connection and knowing people have your back,’ said Jon Clifton, the CEO of Gallup. ‘If we want stronger communities and economies, we must invest in what truly matters: each other.’… Sharing meals and having somebody to count on.

“Researchers say that beyond health and wealth, some factors that influence happiness sound deceptively simple: sharing meals with others, having somebody to count on for social support, and household size. In Mexico and Europe, for example, a household size of four to five people predicts the highest levels of happiness, the study said… Believing in the kindness of others is also much more closely tied to happiness than previously thought, according to the latest findings.

“As an example, the report suggests that people who believe that others are willing to return their lost wallet is a strong predictor of the overall happiness of a population… Nordic nations rank among the top places for expected and actual return of lost wallets, the study found… Alexandra Peth, a managing director, said Finnish culture prioritizes trust and connection. ‘People trust each other in Finland and I think on many levels in the society, we try to support each other,’ Peth said. ‘So I think the system makes it kind of that you can trust it somehow.’

“Overall, researchers said that global evidence on the perceived and actual return of lost wallets shows that people are much too pessimistic about the kindness of their communities compared to reality — actual rates of wallet return are around twice as high as people expect.

“The U.S. falls to its lowest-ever position in the happiness ranking… While European countries dominate the top 20 in the ranking, there were some exceptions. Despite the war with Hamas, Israel came in at eighth. Costa Rica and Mexico entered the top 10 for the first time, ranking at sixth and 10th respectively.

“When it comes to decreasing happiness — or growing unhappiness — the United States has dropped to its lowest-ever position at 24, having previously peaked at 11th place in 2012. The report states that the number of people dining alone in the United States has increased 53% over the past two decades… Afghanistan is again ranked as the unhappiest country in the world, with Afghan women saying their lives are especially difficult… Sierra Leone in western Africa is the second unhappiest, followed by Lebanon, ranking third from the bottom.

“Almost one-fifth of young adults globally have no social support… In a concerning development, the study said that 19% of young adults across the world reported in 2023 that they have no one they could count on for social support. That is a 39% increase compared to 2006.” Large countries fare badly, as do people living within governance by narrow-minded autocrats. That the United States is profoundly heterogeneous may complicate how we might truly measure happiness. Still, since a vast majority of those in Congress don’t give a rat’s posterior about average citizen happiness, with a President who loves to hide, deny, manipulate and bury any metrics that reflect badly on him, I suspect that average citizen happiness is the last thing on his mind.

The one biblical mandate (New Testament) that Americans struggle with is dealt with in Mark 12 (NT Mark 12:28–34): “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked Him,

"Which commandment is the first of all?"

Jesus answered,

"The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no other commandment greater than these.'" When many of us in the United States elect to ignore, hate and marginalize many of the rest of us, the US happiness quotient tanked. In slightly over a decade, the US happiness ranking has fallen 13 places. From happy and trusting to miserable, untrusting… and alone. Maybe finishing that border wall can change that?! Huh? Where did all those religious Christians go?

I’m Peter Dekom, and even if we rewrote the above to “You shall tolerate and respect thy neighbor,” we would at least be taking a giant step in the right direction.

Turning Love into Hate: Trump and Business, Large and Small

 

Turning Love into Hate: Trump and Business, Large and Small

PETER ON THE WRITERS’ HANGOUT PODCAST!

Trump portrays himself as the champion of the working man (yes, I said “man”) and small businesses. His reconfiguration of the National Labor Relations Board has created the largest anti-union agency in many decades. Union members face more layoffs But his going-forward tariff and trade policies are creating untold misery on small businesses, many of which are unlikely to survive. In short, billionaires will continue to grow and prosper, especially if Trump’s tax cut proposals are enacted, and everyone will pay for that horrendous mistake. Butas well shall see, it isn’t all roses for America’s big tech industrial complex. And remember financial services, and tech based innovators account for 70 percent of the private economy here. They get killed too.

Let’s look at big tech, which is heavily reliant on component imports, now starring down Trump’s double-down barrel of a shotgun that will tank their shares and raise prices to unsustainable levels. For big, it’s even worse than our automotive industry. Unless, like the premiere law firms who cave, Big Tech has to seek Trump’s exemptions. As Queenie Wong and Wendy Lee, writing for the April 6th Los Angeles Times, explain: “Apple makes most of its iPhones in China, though in recent years the Cupertino-based company has made more of its products in India, Vietnam and other nations. In all, the tech giant says it relies on more than 50 countries and regions to put AirPods, iPads and MacBooks in the hands of consumers.

“Now, that global supply chain is under siege… Last week, President Trump said he would impose a baseline 10% tariff on imports from all countries on Saturday. His administration also added tariffs of 34% on China, 46% on Vietnam and 26% on India… ‘Apple has nowhere to hide,’ said Eric Harwit, professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. ‘No matter where they’re making their technology, they’re going to be suffering, they’re going to see higher costs.’

“Trump’s sweeping tariffs have rattled both investors and some of the world’s most valuable tech companies that have fueled the global economy and Silicon Valley’s growth. They’ve also raised questions about whether these global businesses will pass the higher costs on to consumers or slash their payrolls… Apple has been especially hard hit. Its stock plunged more than 9% on Thursday [4/3] and dropped another 7% on Friday to close at $188.38… Share prices of other tech titans, including Google parent company Alphabet, Meta, chipmaker Nvidia and Amazon, also saw big declines, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite to fall 5.8% on Friday — putting it more than 20% below its record set in December.

“The unease reflects worries among investors that the tariffs could cause lasting damage, potentially making it harder for the U.S. tech industry to compete globally and dominate the race to deploy artificial intelligence technology, analysts said… The duties also are expected to drive up the costs of consumer electronics, including the iPhone, as products become more expensive to produce… ‘Technology pervades everyday life and these tariffs are attacks on consumer electronics,’ said Todd O’Boyle, vice president of technology policy at the Chamber of Progress, a trade group. ‘They’re attacks on everything that we buy and that includes any foreign parts with global supply chains.’…The levies could cause consumers to pay as much as $2,500 more for an iPhone, which costs roughly $1,000, depending on the model…

“Daniel Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, said that it would take Apple three years and $30 billion to move just 10% of its supply chain from Asia to the U.S. Plus, the iPhone’s price tag would grow to $3,500, he estimated… ‘The chances that Apple and the overall tech supply chain moves to the U.S. is a fantasy, fictional tale, unless you like $3,500 iPhones, $2,500 TVs and $300 AirPods,’ Ives said.” China’s revenge is not just reciprocal tariff rates but a threat to veto the sale of TikTok to a US buyer. OK, let’s screw the big boys, particularly if they are located in that radical leftist California. Except even the little guys are going down… no matter where they are located. Indeed, smaller business, many of which are too small to manufacture their wares, are justifiably terrified. As Lydia DePillis, writing for the April 6th New York Times, tells us:

“Thousands of entrepreneurs are finding themselves in similar positions as they confront the blizzard of changes from Washington over the last two and a half months. Funding freezes, staffing cuts to federal agencies and an immigration crackdown — along with, of course, tariffs — are throwing many into turmoil, with little certainty about how to proceed… ‘It’s feeling like a tornado to small-business owners,’ said Natalie Madeira Cofield, chief executive of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, which supports initiatives to help companies with fewer than 10 employees. ‘This is an unprecedented moment.’

“The last few years have been a whirlwind for this part of the private sector, which is critical to feeding the American economy with new ideas and competitive vigor. The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a boom of business formation, and many of those start-ups continued to thrive in new niches, with modern practices.

“Then, a surge in inflation, followed by a run-up in interest rates, stretched many small enterprises to their limit. Small firms have fewer employees on average than they did before the pandemic, according to the payroll platform Homebase; hiring declined 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2025 from a year earlier. And data from the accounting software company QuickBooks shows that the set of businesses with fewer than 10 workers started shrinking rapidly in March 2024.

“The economist who compiles those numbers, Ufuk Akcigit of the University of Chicago, also found in a working paper released last month that small businesses started to run up their credit card bills in 2021, incurring heavy interest payments. As interest rates rose in 2022, revenues declined and more businesses became delinquent. … ‘Small businesses don’t have internal capital to rely on,’ Dr. Akcigit said. ‘As a result, if there’s any financial difficulty, they’re the first group to be left out of the credit market.’”

Let me put this in perspective. The above are just a few examples of why high tariffs and trade barriers invite massive failure, from which it could take years to recover. Even if Trump totally reversed himself (not his double-down style), his unpredictable behavior, his mercurial personality and proclivity to bully his solutions would probably require a few years of consistency to convince the world that this reversal were real. See the problem?

I’m Peter Dekom, and there are moments when I envy an ostrich with its head in the sand.