Tariffs and other Economic Errors in Judgement

Go get a cup of coffee, or your beverage of choice, and settle in. This is going to take a while.

The Set-Up

The US economy is the strongest in the world. Highest GDP, and GDP per capita. Largest economy in the world. The dollar is the world’s reserve currency. We have recovered more quickly than other countries from the devastation of the pandemic.

Good rule of thumb from smart people:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The implementation of this week’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum are a terrible idea. As are some of the percolating other tariffs. They, and some other economic follies, will do huge damage both to the US economy, as well as the global economy.

I could take you through all the details of how all of this will be terrible, but what interests me is:

Why do the Orange Menace, Elmo Muskrat, and their partners in crime want to destroy the US economy?

Understanding this is critical, not just for you and me, but for the members of the US House and Senate, because there are things they can do to stop it.

Cliff Notes version: they want to destroy the economy so that they can benefit financially from it. Simple example. Elmo shut down USAID NOT because it spends too much money nor is inefficient, but because it was investigating him. Source¹.

The Penny Imbroglio

Let’s take a tiny example: the US penny. The Convicted Felon has said there can be no more pennies produced. And if you just look at it, you might say “Sure, why not? It costs more to manufacture a penny than it’s worth, and they’re a pain to deal with, and who cares?”

BUT

If there are no pennies, how do you pay sales tax? Can you force states and municipalities to only have 5% or 10% sales tax? And you then force sellers to never have a retail price that ends in 99 cents?

I hear you: “But I don’t use cash, it shouldn’t matter, I only use a debit or credit card so those prices can still exist.”

What about the unbanked who pay cash? What about people, like me, who are “banked” but use cash for small purchases?

And then: “We can just round things to the nearest nickel”. Have you looked at math scores lately? A lot of people don’t know how to round. Not to mention whether they’ll need a law to determine whether .03 rounds up or down.

AND

It also costs more than 5 cents to manufacture a nickel². So then we’d be left with dimes and quarters, on which the US Mint still makes a profit.

This is the first salvo in trying to get away from money, and onto crypto. Like DOGE coins. (Ever wonder why they named the department “DOGE”?) Convicted Felon and family made millions on his meme coin, while 810,000 people lost $2 billion on it. Source. Grifting, grifting, grifting.

And as a logistic aside, there are about a quarter of a trillion pennies currently in circulation, or about 700 per person. Not kidding. Will the government take them back and pay us for them? Will they all go to landfills?

REMINDER

Whether or not pennies cease to be manufactured matters less than the WHY.

The Data

They “why” in terms of why Elmo and his band of juvenile delinquents want all of our data is so that they can steal it. Please, use the comments if you have NEVER been the victim of a data breach. My guess is that between the huge breaches, none of us has been left unscathed. Here’s the major breach list.

Now, the data breaches have made us all vulnerable to identity theft and hijacking of our accounts³. But that just means that some hacker on the dark web wants to try and harm you. Elmo and company want to make it so that your $2,000.00 monthly Social Security check falls to $2.00 because what’s a few decimal places between friends? They want to do the same thing with your tax refund. And then steal the money.

I am not paranoid, and this is not a conspiracy theory. If you have a better explanation of why they want all our data, let me know.

The Tariffs

The “why” for tariffs is the simplest of all. But first, this is where the desires of the Convicted Felon and Elmo Muskrat diverge.

Von Shitzenpants wants to be a combination of Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping, only worse. He wants to be feared. He wants people to bow down and kow tow to him, he wants to decimate any perceived enemies, he wants giant military parades, and remember, he has dementia. Tariffs are his way of saying his balls are bigger than anyone else’s. If he had all that power, he wouldn’t know what to do with it, except build more branded buildings and golf courses, which would, of course, go bankrupt. If he can bring down the US economy, he can bring down the global economy and he thinks this will leave him in charge of everything. Again, he has dementia.

Elmo, along with Peter Theil and a few others, want to bring down the world economy for a completely different, and actually far more ominous, reason. My college thesis was entitled “Multinational Corporations, the US Government, and the Pursuit of Hegemony”⁴. Back when I wrote it, companies were just starting to be truly multinational. My contention was that eventually, there would be a corporation (or corporations) large and powerful enough to usurp the legitimate power of sovereign states. And here we are, 47 years later.

Elmo, et. al., want the world to be run by corporations, and to do that, they need to collapse the global economy (starting here!) so that they can “rebuild” it. They are happy to let the Orange Menace live in his fantasy land, they’d probably buy him a crown, rod and scepter for him to play with. But imagine what a corporate-run world would look like.

You know something, don’t imagine. Take my word for it that it would be terrible.

What Should the House and Senate do?

I wouldn’t have shared the terror with you if I didn’t have an idea.

On 14 March, the current extension expires, and if Congress doesn’t do something, there will be no more funding and the government will shut down.

There are those who say the Democrats should use this as a great opportunity to get “what we want” in negotiations with MAGA-world, especially in the Senate where 7 Democratic votes are necessary to hit the 60-vote threshold for cloture. Much of the Democratic leadership fears that a shutdown would adversely impact vulnerable Democrats in 2026.

Meanwhile, the Rethuglicans have their own problem. The Senate wants two bills⁵, the House wants one⁶. The hardline fiscal conservatives won’t allow for deficit spending without offsets. Not to mention that they cannot even agree on a topline number⁷.

I think they’re all reaching for the wrong brass ring on the merry-go-round. The fascist regime is going to do what it wants to do, so long as it can get away with it, including stealing the power of the purse from Congress, which Constitutionally is charged with said power of the purse.

If Congress says, “spend X dollars on Y”, and Elmo doesn’t want to, with his access to the data, he and the delinquents can just not cut the checks. I hear you: the courts have cut off DOGE’s access to the data. The courts have also paused the spending pause. But people are still not getting their money. Like farmers.

Therefore, shutting down the government or not shutting down the government is inconsequential in terms of what money does or doesn’t get spent. Politically, the House Democrats should fold their collective arms across their chest and say to the Rethuglicans: “You won. You hold the majority. Pass something on strictly GOP votes”⁸.

These are desperate times and thus call for desperate measures. Before I give you my idea, I want to point out that you will think it’s insane. I fully expect half of you to cancel your subscriptions to my Substack because it sounds so crazy. But let me know if you have a better idea. It’s time to think out of the box.

Are you familiar with 2 USC Chapter 29, Subchapter 2, specifically Section 1966? Probably not, since normal people don’t spend time reading Federal Laws. Here’s my favourite part.

§1966. Protection of Members of Congress, officers of Congress, and members of their families

(a) Authority of the Capitol Police

Subject to the direction of the Capitol Police Board, the United States Capitol Police is authorized to protect, in any area of the United States, the person of any Member of Congress, officer of the Congress, as defined in section 4101(b) of this title, and any member of the immediate family of any such Member or officer, if the Capitol Police Board determines such protection to be necessary.

…

(c) Arrest of suspects

In the performance of their protective duties under this section, members of the United States Capitol Police are authorized (1) to make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; and (2) to utilize equipment and property of the Capitol Police.

Yup, I think Congressional Leadership should have the Capitol Police arrest Elon Musk, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, Marko Elez, Akash Bobba, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger and Ethan Shaotran⁹. I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that expropriating government data for nefarious reasons, falls under “any offense against the United States” and the usurping the power of the purse is a threat to every member of the House and Senate in their sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution.

Think about it - how would YOU feel if you were a Capitol Police Officer who had lost friends on January 6th, just to see the perpetrators pardoned? Likely, you’d be happy to arrest people related to the fascist regime.

If they are arrested and held over for trial, they can’t do anything. Yeah, yeah, there’s no jail under the Capitol, that’s an urban myth. But, over at 119 D Street, NE Washington, D.C., 20510 is the headquarters of the Capitol Police, and they DO have a holding facility.

I meant it when I said let me know if you have a better idea. People keep telling me that calls, canvasses, postcards and protests don’t do any good¹⁰. Therefore, we need some sort of bold action that no one is expecting. All we need are a few brave elected Members of Congress to stand up and say “enough” in a way that will put the degenerates where they belong.

1. I don’t trust that they won’t take the website down, so here’s the screen shot:

2. They lose MORE per coin on nickels than they do on pennies.

3. If you haven’t frozen your credit reports with all three bureaus, do it today.

4. There’s a huge backstory on my thesis, if you want to hear it, leave a comment, and I’ll tell the story. It’s so old that it may only be of interest to me.

5. Border and other spends in one bill, taxes in another.

6. Everything, everywhere, all at once.

7. Everything you need to know is here. When you open the document, you won’t want to read it, but PLEASE read it. It pays to understand the framework.

8. They won’t. They’ll fold.

9. You know Elmo, the rest are his known band of delinquents, with keys to the data.

10. I disagree, but that’s what they tell me.