The lesson – don’t drink coffee while repairing your car with an electric tool – and for sure, don’t turn on the lights!
Image from Fox News, who is apparently unable to spin this.
Economics 101
Tag: Economics
“I’ll Buy Your Garbage If You Buy Mine!”
Trump and Argentine President Milei meet to discuss whose memecoin scam was the most successful. Trump stands to make more money, but Milei has already cashed out. So far, it’s a toss-up.
You would think the two would avoid being photographed together! Milei faces calls for impeachment, while Trump is a washed-up joke of a conman, grifting his own followers out of several billion dollars.
Question – how many people can they hurt before they are ejected from power?
A Golden Age of Grift
Quick update – Trump and Milei meet to compare crypto-scam notes.
Is this a golden age of grift, or what? A con man for President, and the richest con man in the world as his chief advisor.
Quick thoughts on a few cons that Trump & Co are pulling in their first month back in office:
Crypto – 100% scam. Crypto is a useless faux-currency whose only “value” is that some other sucker might pay more for it. If Bitcoin or some other crypto-currency somehow took hold, the most it can do is supplement existing currency – in other words, increase the money supply and cause inflation.
Governments having a “strategic bitcoin reserve” – this is nothing but a funnel from taxpayers’ bank accounts into the pockets of the techno elite. There is absolutely no need for such a “reserve” – it’s just a way to pump the price of Bitcoin etc by creating more buyers.
Memecoins – these are always scams. How could they have any enduring “value”? It’s the nature of a meme to be transitory. Crypto is going to have to show the public more than “what’s trending on yahoo” as a basis of a new currency.
Trump & Melania memecoins – considering that most of the buyers are Trumpies (many of them “onboarding” to crypto for the first time) this is quite the karmic scam. At this writing, Trump’s coin is sitting at about 25% of the price most people paid, and Melania’s is at 10%. The First Family and Friends have pocketed at least $2 billion. Crypto brokers have made $100 million in fees. Ka-ching!
Image: Motley Fool
2025 Economic Prognostications
A few forecasts for the coming year:
Elon & Trump fall out – duh! Seeing Elon do his “I’m a Happy Billionaire” dance must infuriate the faux-riche Trump. Ask yourself – can two con artists work together, even for mutual benefit? Did Ponzi have a partner?
Inflation surpasses the Biden years. Tariffs on cheap Chinese imports will mean more expensive Mexican imports. Impact on US manufacturing = nil.
Stock market “readjusts” to about 25-30K (Dow), which would bring recent dividends into the 3% range typical of post-Reagan capitalism. Based on the current valuation (Dow = 44K), dividends average around 2%. So unless every Dow corporation increases its dividends by 50% next year, say hello to a 30K Dow. As for Nasdaq, the gutter is the limit.
Immigrant bashing will escalate, including attacks on legal workers – immigrant workers that this country urgently needs to fill many types of jobs. Don’t expect any actual impact on the flow of undocumented migrants – just a lot of suffering.
Chaos will abound in several cabinet-level departments, including Justice (especially the FBI), Health and Human Services, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
ObamaCare will come under immediate and concerted attack by a President who suffers from legacy-envy, and would do anything to destroy guaranteed health care. He failed by a single Senate vote in 2016. Get ready for a renewed effort. Look for a neo-libertarian claim that everyone should be free to choose whether or not to be insured.
Image: CNN
Brilliant Materialist Interpretation of Modern European History
Eric Hobsbawm’s four-volume survey of European history from the French Revolution to the Fall of the Eastern Bloc is the premier materialist text of its generation. While giving solid notice to culture and politics, Hobsbawm’s first interest is in the movements of economics and production, and how these tides shaped the broader history of the period.
Readable, engaging, fast-paced – an indispensable survey of the past two centuries.
Just released in audio format – click here
Plenty of used paperbacks – click here
Kermode’s reading is solid – but the audio quality is poor. Tantor usually does better – how about a remix?
Still – five stars for this extraordinary book!
Painting: Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People
