Post 747 - April 14, 2025

I gotta say that I am finding the current Republican-created worldwide economic chaos kind of a relief.

If the last few days have done nothing else, they have confirmed that the President doesn’t have even the slightest idea what he is doing. He is quite literally making it all up as he goes along. Even his most ardent supporters are having a hard time keeping up. Anyone with even the most basic economic know-how is utterly baffled. The experts are mystified.

Some Commerce Secretary or Head of some Department or other was in the middle of being interviewed by the Senate about the tariffs when the news broke that the President had paused them. This poor guy was up on the Hill giving his all to defend this misguided nonsense when it suddenly wasn’t happening anymore. Nobody had bothered to either tell him or even consult with him about it. He was completely blindsided.

The reason that I find myself suddenly optimistic despite all this, is that in the face of global blowback against his misbegotten tax levies on everything and anything that he was determined to push through come hell or high water, the President caved. He did a complete about-face and backed down.

Before this, I didn’t think that he had a threshold that, when reached, would cause him to change course. He seemed impervious to all reason. It appeared that he was happy to just burn it all down. Thank the Lord, it seems that even he has a limit. Who would have guessed?

What seems to have happened is that Canada, along with the EU, threatened to unload all their United States Treasury Bond holdings. Had that happened, their value would have plummeted and with them would have gone America’s ability to borrow money from our allies. In the face of that kind of sell-off, we would lose any sort of economic strength we may have left. Someone realized that without the strength of our bond market, we would be in very real danger of becoming inconsequential.

Bonds are essentially the promissory notes somebody gets when lending the United States money. The United States must pay the money back with interest when the bonds mature, but in the meantime, it can be used for whatever it is that we might need. It seems that our asset holdings these days amount to little more than an enormous truckload of these promissory notes. If everyone holding a bond decided to call in their loans all of a sudden, we would be well and truly screwed.

That seems to be what finally caused His Orangeness to blink.

And blink he did. Once you’ve shown your hand, as well as exposed your pressure point, it seems to me that you have lost whatever leverage you might have had.

The President might be an idiot, but the rest of the leaders sitting at the world’s virtual bargaining table with him certainly aren’t.

Rachel Maddow has an eye-opening report on where our brainless leader got the idea for these absurd tariffs in the first place. It seems that during his first campaign, the President asked his son-in-law to find him an economic advisor.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law in question, went onto the Amazon website and scrolled through the list of books they were selling that dealt with economics. He landed on a book entitled Death by China that struck him as interesting. He didn’t read the book; he just liked the sound of the title. Kushner got the co-author’s phone number and called him. That co-author was this guy we’ve all been hearing about named Peter Navarro. Navarro is the person who was all excited about tariffs.

In all his books Navarro references a brilliant economist named Ron Vara to support his theories on the efficacy of imposing tariffs. Everything Navarro posits is backed up and supported by the ideas and expertise of Ron Vara. When the President first started talking about the idea of imposing these tariffs, Mr. Vara was firmly behind him. He emailed, “Ride the tariffs to victory!”

One of the issues with Mr. Vara, it turns out, is that he, unfortunately, doesn’t exist. He is a total fabrication. Peter Navarro just made him up. Don’t believe me? Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro.

Trillions of dollars of our country’s wealth have evaporated based on spurious advice to a moron from a completely fictional character.

When I’m out for my daily walk, if I am anxious or concerned about what I am reading in the news, I tend to retreat inside myself. On a bad news day, I can walk for miles and not really take anything in.

Yesterday, however, as I made my way downtown, I found myself enjoying walking under blossoming trees lining the streets of the city. They were everywhere. White and pink flowers formed whole clouds of color in even the most neglected of neighborhoods. If I were I locked into my former cycle of gloom and doom all I would have seen would have been people lying on their boxes over the subway grates. Instead, I was also able to see the dense floral canopies above them.

I am always acutely aware of just how many of our fellow citizens must struggle to get through to a new day. I saw them just as clearly yesterday as I usually do. In addition to all the destitute, though, I also saw our natural co-inhabitants exploding into life. There are trees everywhere throughout New York City. We live in an urban forest. They might not say much, but during this time of year, they certainly make themselves known.

At the Whitney Museum downtown, there is a retrospective by Amy Sherald of her remarkable paintings. You know who she is, even if you think you don’t. Ms. Sherald is the artist who created the spectacular official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama. The army of people she has created is impressive and deeply moving. From all walks of life, they stare out at the viewer with an unflinching honesty and directness. I found the whole experience of seeing them deeply moving.

After the museum, I joined Michael for dinner. We then saw an evening of four one-act plays by the great Caryl Churchill at the Public Theatre. Ms. Churchill's plays are an unflinching portrait of who we are. She sees us.

This Administration frankly doesn’t stand a chance. Whether we are painting or writing, acting or designing, our voices are coming through loud and clear. The Republicans may think that the women of the world should be kept at home, but I think they’re sadly mistaken. I’m guessing, based on the amazing women I know and have in my life, not to mention people like Sherald and Churchill, that staying at home isn’t what’s going to happen. Try to stop us and we only get stronger.

For each person that falls away, like the comedian Bill Maher who seems to have fallen under the thrall of our want-to-be dictator, another voice will rise. Maher, formerly an outspoken critic of the man, recently accepted an invitation to dine with the President. He then reported to his viewers that the President was very gracious and even-keeled during their meal. In recent days, he’s given people like Steve Bannon airtime. It’s time to shut him off.

With each passing day, the sheer incompetence in evidence from this Administration becomes clearer. Make no mistake, nothing that is currently unfolding is inevitable. Both President T$%^p and President Musk can be stopped in their tracks at any time. The Republicans have more than enough power to do that. The issue is, as it always has been, to get them to act.

Blowback is starting. Even some Republicans are beginning to see the chaos and economic uncertainty hit their constituents in their pocketbooks. In some quarters, the doubt is creeping in. Whatever it is that people want, it isn’t this. The murmuring has finally started. Will it be enough?

The more things continue as they are, the more the support for these people currently in charge will crumble away. The Republicans aren’t offering anyone anything. That’s starting to become clear to even the most obtuse among us.

This last rollercoaster of speculation made a couple of billionaires, via insider trading, even richer than they were last week. Everybody else, however, suffered.

It’s time for more of us to take to the streets and amplify our voices. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” We are allowed to say that. There are already plenty of folks who have taken up the chant.

So, here we go. Let’s see what happens. This may just be a false spring of hope. It may herald nothing more than another severe winter squall. It may, however, be a sign of the fresh green growth to come. Who knows? In the meantime, enjoy the flowers while they’re here.

Popcorn, anyone?