As to Trump's history in business, Jessica Dean on CNN last week, as the stock market plummeted following Trump's tariff directive, noted to her guest, Ross Gerber, co-founder of Gerber Kawaski Wealth Management, that "the White House is saying trust Trump". Gerber responded: "Wall Street knows Trump's track record of trusting Trump with business which is bankruptcy after bankruptcy after bankruptcy.... His track record speaks for itself of being drowned in doubt and making horrible business decisions."
There is a long record of this including the Trump casinos and Trump University.
As Steve Benen reported on MSNBC.com last week, based on an interview of Nobel laureate Paul Krugman on The Rachel Maddow Show, that "if Trump is going to set the global economy-- and your retirements savings on fire, it's hardly unreasonable to think he should present his vision in a way that had a tangential relationship with reality. He did not."
Many Trump claims are cited including how the "United States subsidizes Canada with $200 billion a year" and the U.S. "'took in hundreds of billions of dollars'" from China thanks to tariffs he imposed during his first term and "Canada imposes a 250-300% tariff on many of our dairy products" and "the Great Depression happened because U.S. officials moved away from tariffs" and the list goes on. And with each claim, Benen writes how it "wasn't true" and provides elaboration.
"The larger point of course, isn't just that Trump has a truth allergy," Benen continued. "Much of the public knew this long before his [tariff announcement] event in the Rose Garden began. Rather, the broader significance is rooted in the fact that the president-- reading from prepared text-- apparently felt as if he had to lie."
Joe Conason in a piece on Alternet headlined "The thing that ensures economic catastrophe," wrote: "Everyone should have known what was about to happen when Donald Trump announced huge global tariffs under the slogan 'Make America Wealthy Again.' Like 'Make America Healthy Again,' which accompanied the return of deadly measles, the cheery tagline for Trump's trade war foretold ruin-- which has arrived at warp speed.
"Within hours, the global markets wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth from the balance sheets of retirement accounts and pension plans as well as banks and corporations. What looms ahead is not the 'boom' that Trump has predicted but rather a shrinking economy with both stagnating employment and rising prices. Which is precisely the opposite of what he promised voters last year," he continued.
"To anyone who has observed Trump closely over the course of his career, this catastrophe was predictable as soon as he gained the unchecked sway he now wields in Washington," he went on.
"He is not a 'stable genius' with superior genetic endowment, but a spoiled scion of middling intelligence at best. He is not a brilliant negotiator who can conclude the Ukraine war in a single day or bring the Chinese government to heel, but a failed businessman who wrecked his father's real estate company with bad deals and excessive debt.
"Having escaped any accountability for the national destruction incurred during his first presidential term-- from the mismanaged pandemic that cost a million lives to the violent coup attempt of Jan. 6, 2021-- he has returned to the White House with even greater arrogance, courtesy of the Supreme Court. Secure in power, he is delivering an extremely painful lesson in the consequences of ignorance and incompetence run amok.
"Those dismal qualities were instantly on display in every aspect of the tariff rollout, as neither the president nor his phalanx of flunkies could offer any plausible rationale of his actions beyond sloganeering," wrote Conason.
"Why is the United States seeking to punish its traditional allies in Europe? Why are we penalizing our best trading partners in Canada and Mexico? Why are we imposing trade barriers on tiny countries like Lesotho and remote islands uninhabited by human beings? (We may yet see how brilliantly Trump negotiates with penguins.) And how did Trump formulate the cardboard list of nations and tariffs he brandished as a prop at his 'Liberation Day' announcement?" he asked.
"The White House could offer no coherent response to these puzzling questions, which drew contradictory answers from everyone around Trump, as well as the president himself, or no answers at all."
These, indeed, "are not very bright guys".
And you can't fix stupid.
We desperately need alternatives as soon as possible.
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