Friday, April 04, 2025
Most People Think Trump Will Try For A Third Term (But Shouldn't Be Allowed To)
The chart above is from the YouGov Poll -- done between March 30th and April 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,626 adults, with a 3.3 point margin of error.
About 219,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed about 219,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on March 29th. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending March 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 219,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 224,000 to 225,000. The 4-week moving average was 223,000, a decrease of 1,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 224,000 to 224,250.
Thursday, April 03, 2025
Trump And Musk Are Down 10 Points On Favorability
The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between March 30th and April 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,465 registered voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.
Trump's Rants About Tariffs Go Beyond Nonsense
One safe prediction, however, is that over the next few days we’ll see many news analyses purporting to explain the thinking behind this radical change in U.S. policy.
Such analyses will be a waste of time, because there’s nothing to explain. I’m not saying that the Trump team’s thinking is unsound. I don’t see any thinking at all.
I don’t know how many people realize that the administration’s case for tariffs is completely incoherent, that it has not one but two major internal contradictions.
Here’s the story: Trumpers are claiming that tariffs
1. Won’t increase prices, because foreign producers will absorb the cost
2. Will cause a large shift in U.S. demand away from imports to domestic production
3. Will raise huge amounts of revenue
If you think about it for a minute, you realize that (1) is inconsistent with (2): If prices of imports don’t rise, why would consumers switch to domestically produced goods? At the same time, (2) is inconsistent with (3): If imports drop a lot, tariffs won’t raise a lot of money, because there won’t be much to tax.
So the public story about tariffs doesn’t make any sense. And Trump’s rants about tariffs go beyond nonsense.
The Writing Is On The Wall - Can Republicans Read It?
Elon Musk thought he was a political genius, and decided to buy the GOP a state Supreme Court judge. He spent millions of dollars on the campaign - and even gave away a couple of million dollar checks to try and raise the enthusiasm among voters. It was all for naught.
On Tuesday, voters elected Democrat Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And it wasn't even close. Crawford won by a 10-point margin. If Musk isn't embarrassed, he should be. He took what would probably have been a close race and turned it into a blowout for the candidate he didn't support.
I have been wondering when the public would create a backlash against the actions of Musk and Trump. It began on Tuesday.
The voters were clear. Musk was not about to buy the election. He could have spent millions more, and it wouldn't have made any difference. The voters were making a statement.
They don't like Musk - and they don't like what he's doing to programs that are important to them (Social Security, Veterans affairs, Medicare/Medicaid, Education, etc.). The voters were unhappy, and you can't buy the vote of an unhappy voter.
But it wasn't just Wisconsin. Voters in Florida gave the GOP something to think about, too. There were elections in two Florida House districts. Bot districts were bright red - having given Trump and the GOP House candidates over 30 point margins last November. Those vote margins were cut in half on Tuesday.
Republicans probably don't have to worry about these two districts in November of 2026. But there are dozens of GOP seats with muck smaller winning margins - and the representative holding those seats should start to worry. The voters aren't happy with Trump's tariffs, Musk's chaotic destruction of agencies, and the GOP congress that allows that without any resistance.
The writing is on the wall. Can Republicans read it? Or are they too busy kissing Trump's but to notice?
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Americans Want Immigrants To Get A Court Hearing Before Deportation
The "Great Dealmaker" Is Having Trouble Making Global Deals
Donald Trump brags that he is a great dealmaker, and he convinced his supporters that he would easily and quickly make deals once he started his second term. He even promised to get a peace deal in Ukraine on his first day! But it's easy to make ridiculous promises, and quite another to follow through on them. And he is having big problems on completing global deals he said would be easy. Axios.com lists five deals that are eluding Trump's magic touch:
On at least five fronts, Trump's ambitions for big international deals are hitting early hurdles:
1. On Ukraine, Trump campaigned on securing a deal to end the fighting within 24 hours — though now he claims that promise was "a little bit sarcastic."
- Trump did get Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, and to agree to stop bombing each other's energy infrastructure. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast doubt on the possibility of a peace deal any time soon.
- Trump said Sunday he was "pissed off" at Putin for his recent comments, and threatened additional oil tariffs if Moscow continues to stand in the way of a full ceasefire.
- He also fired a warning shot at Ukraine, after President Volodymyr Zelensky complained that the minerals deal Kyiv negotiated with the U.S. is "constantly changing."
2. On Gaza, Trump helped deliver a breakthrough before even taking office when his team worked with the outgoing Biden administration to secure a ceasefire.
- That truce is now over, and Israel on Monday announced it would massively expand its renewed ground operation in Gaza.
- Trump isn't actively pursuing his own proposal for the U.S. to displace Gaza's population to construct a new "Riviera." Instead, he's focusing on restarting talks to restore the ceasefire and free the remaining 59 hostages, Axios' Barak Ravid reports. Israeli and U.S. officials believe 22 of them are still alive.
3. On Iran, Trump issued an ultimatum demanding Tehran agree to a new nuclear deal within two months or face potential military strikes. That's led to further threats from both sides.
- Iranian leaders have rejected the idea of direct negotiations with the Trump administration, but left open the possibility of indirect talks.
- "If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing," Trump told NBC on Sunday.
4. On Greenland, Trump continues to insist that the U.S. "needs" to obtain the autonomous Danish territory, perhaps by military force.
- Vice President Vance laid out one path to a deal last week: Greenland votes for independence from Denmark, then signs a security pact with the U.S.
- The island's new prime minister announced a new coalition last week in part to unite againstU.S. pressure.
5. On tariffs, it's unclear if Trump is actually using them as leverage to cut deals — as Wall Street once assumed — or if he wants the levies in place long-term.
- Blue chip companies have announced billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. to try to preempt the tariffs and get on Trump's good side — Exhibit A for why Republicans remain optimistic about his trade strategy.
- But countries uncertain of how to protect themselves from Trump's economic wrath are starting to look elsewhere.
In an extraordinary sign of how Trump's hardball tactics are reshaping the world, China, South Korea and Japan — three countries with deep historical grievances — agreed to respond jointly to U.S. tariffs, according to Chinese state media.
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
The Public Thinks "Signalgate" Was A Serious Matter
The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done on March 27th and 28th of a nationwide sample of 2,609 adults, with a 2.3 point margin of error.
The Public Is Unhappy With Trump's Handling Of The Economy
The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done on March 27th and 28th of a nationwide sample of 2,609 adults, with a 2.3 point margin of error.
Small Business Is Getting A Rude Awakening
The following is just a small part of a post by economist Paul Krugman:
One odd feature of U.S. politics is that businesspeople, especially small business owners, always seems to believe that they will do better under Republicans, even though history shows that business does better under Democrats. Small business owners supported Trump in the last election, despite ample evidence that he would be very bad for business.
And now they’re getting a rude awakening.
Trump to follow in Orban’s footsteps is that Trump, like Orban, clearly doesn’t have any fixed principles other than power and self-aggrandizement. Under Trump, policy won’t reflect any consistent ideology. It will, instead, change with his perception of personal advantage, his temper tantrums, his whims and his malignant narcisissim. If he doesn’t like rising prices, he’ll try to stop inflation through bullying.
In short, MAGA will be very bad for business.
This was, of course, predictable and predicted. Tariffs don’t just make foreign goods more expensive to consumers. In a world where many of the goods we import are productive inputs like screws — or auto parts — tariffs directly raise the cost of manufacturing in the United States. Yet Trump’s threats against automakers suggests that he thinks he can control inflation through intimidation.
Trump may impose further tariffs, or slash them as suddenly as he raised them, depending on who spoke to him last. L’Etat, c’est Trump.
This kind of uncertainty is paralyzing for businesses, who are realizing that any kind of long-term commitment can turn out to have been a disastrous mistake. Build a plant that depends on imported parts, and Trump may cut you off at the knees with new tariffs. Build a plant that’s only profitable if tariffs stay in place, and Trump may cut you off at the knees by backing down.
Again, the point is that there really isn’t a MAGA economic philosophy, just whatever suits Trump’s fragile ego.
All of this was predictable and predicted. Before the election many economists warned that Trump’s policies would be destructive, although the models didn’t really take the sheer craziness into account.
The remarkable thing is how many supposedly hard-headed businesspeople didn’t see the obvious. Small business owners, in particular, clearly favored Trump, and as the chart at the top shows, their optimism soared when he won. Now it’s crashing.
So business owners allowed themselves to be deluded, as usual, but with even less excuse than normal. What they should have realized is that Trump’s lack of concern for ordinary Americans’ lives doesn’t mean that he’s pro-business, and that the election wasn’t about left versus right — it was about rule of law versus autocracy. Now we’re getting a first taste of what life under autocracy is like, and it’s bad for everyone, including businesspeople.
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