Summary

Trump snapped at a reporter who asked how much economic pain he was willing to inflict amid plunging markets triggered by his new tariffs.

Speaking after a weekend at his Florida resort, Trump dismissed speculation he was trying to crash the market, claiming tariffs would bring in “$1 trillion” and spur U.S. manufacturing.

When asked about a pain threshold for Americans, he called the question “so stupid,” arguing economic “medicine” was necessary to reverse decades of “stupid leadership.”

He insisted the strategy would make the U.S. “solid and strong again.”

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    His motives may be unclear, but his actions are crystal clear. He’s tried to enact tariffs already and been stopped before they were implemented because everyone knows the level of damage they cause. He’s moving forward this time. He’s deliberately crashing the global economy.

    Why? Who knows? His Silicon Valley overlords demand it? I doubt it’s Putin, because Russia’s economy is hanging on by a thread, and the last thing they need is a global downturn, especially when it craters oil prices. Is it just that Trump is stupid, maybe senile, and ultimately in charge?

    Regardless, the leader of the biggest economy in the world has decided that it’s time for a global recession/depression, so unless that course is changed, that’s probably what’s going to happen.

    • Etterra@discuss.online
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      3 days ago

      His motives are always crystal clear. Ego. He wants people to grovel and beg for exceptions. He wants to feel powerful. The fact that mainstream news won’t say so is likely predicted on not wanting to be banned from the press pool like the AP was.

      The government and media have a mutually parasitic relationship. The government uses the media to spread and reinforce their propaganda, while the media’s jobs are made much easier by having direct and ostensibly willing access to the people in government. If they want access, the media has to play ball. The rules seem to be unwritten, like their own little interwoven social contract. The result being that they’ve mostly become pushovers when some Orange Jackass comes along to play dictator and burn the country to the ground in pursuit of his own aggrandizement.

      • drhodl@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        His motives are always crystal clear. Ego. He wants people to grovel and beg for exceptions. He wants to feel powerful. The fact that mainstream news won’t say so is likely predicted on not wanting to be banned from the press pool like the AP was.

        He also wants personal “favors”. He will come out of this vastly wealthier, even if USA becomes a third world country,

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      3 days ago

      It’s all plans from the '30s. Canada, the US, Mexico, Greenland, dismantling democracy to install technocrats, crashing the economy to bring back company towns - none of it is new, it’s just being implemented in a nonsensical and incompetent way, so it seems random

      It’s not a good plan to start with, but there is a plan… One the oligarchs bought into, but without understanding how the plan was meant to be enacted

      • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        This is mostly consistent with what I’ve seen, but I would like to know more. Are there any books or articles on the topic, in particular how what is happening is like another attempt at the same plan now that most WWII vets and survivors are dying off/dead/otherwise incapacitated and so those who have the most reason to stop it from happening are much less likely to do so?

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          2 days ago

          Sure. Wikipedia on technocracy movement

          Basically, they want to control all aspects of society on high - no politicians, direct control of the economy, rigidly scheduled work and production, and expanding the borders from Panama to the artic circle.

          Imagine centralized planning and authoritarian control of all aspects of society, but by business leaders (who presumably are the smartest and best at listening to science)

          Here’s the movement described by proponents:

          Technocracy is the science of social engineering, the scientific operation of the entire social mechanism to produce and distribute goods and services to the entire population of this continent. For the first time in human history it will be done as a scientific, technical, engineering problem. There will be no place for Politics or Politicians, Finance or Financiers, Rackets or Racketeers. Technocracy states that this method of operating the social mechanism of the North American Continent is now mandatory because we have passed from a state of actual scarcity into the present status of potential abundance in which we are now held to an artificial scarcity forced upon us in order to continue a Price System which can distribute goods only by means of a medium of exchange. Technocracy states that price and abundance are incompatible; the greater the abundance the smaller the price. In a real abundance there can be no price at all. Only by abandoning the interfering price control and substituting a scientific method of production and distribution can an abundance be achieved. Technocracy will distribute by means of a certificate of distribution available to every citizen from birth to death. The Technate will encompass the entire American Continent from Panama to the North Pole because the natural resources and the natural boundary of this area make it an independent, self-sustaining geographical unit.[45]

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Apparently not. A group of intelligent people would never pick Trump.

        That smoke filled room of Republicans talked about the Overton Window 30 years ago. They decided that they could move that window just by pretending to be much farther right than they really were. The thing about pretending is that if you do it for long enough it’s not pretending anymore. Thirty years later they realized they’ve lost control of what they started. A quarter of the elected officials are now true believers, another half are under Russian blackmail. And anyone who speaks up (Liz- Dick Cheney, a list of others) loses their seat.

        • Gates9@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          I agree with you on blackmail, but it’s obviously not just Russia. Do you think that Jeffrey Epstein was the first or the only guy blackmailing politicians and officials for Mossad?

    • SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Ooh, I can assure you his motives are just as clear as his actions.

      I wouldn’t believe a word he said, nothing but self-truth (lies). I know his mother doesn’t.