Trump's tariff theories forget timing and voters are also consumers

Trump's tariff theories forget timing, and that voters are also consumers. Even if Trump's theory that tariff wars will eventually benefit the economy, a timing problem will backfire on the GOP. Even if manufacturing comes back to the US, it takes years to build up domestic production facilities and capacity, well past the 2026 midterms and into 2028. Trump's tariff war will have an outsized impact on politics because all voters are also consumers, as tariff "taxes" price hikes will begin at once, some not until after pre-tariff inventory is eaten through. The tariff impact on higher prices will be felt by consumers well before the 2026 midterms.

Without cheaper competition from imports, domestic producers will be tempted to raise their prices to get higher margins (difference between what the market will bear, if consumers buy at the price, and what it costs to produce and sell). Products with imported parts will see some prices rise immediately.

I am no economist, but I do follow the impact public policy has on consumers, the focus of my 30-year career in public and government relations as both a regulator and an advocate for consumer rights. 

70 percent of the US economy is consumer-related. Sticker shock will be voter shock, especially for those who thought Trump cared about the prices and inflation. You can count on Democrats to chant we told you so and Trump himself is the one who caused the pain through his "tariff taxes". Those sensitive to prices for everyday consumer goods like clothes and electronics will be the most affected. Those who benefit, such as steel and auto manufacturing, in job creation and salaries, are far outnumbered by the number of price-sensitive consumers who are also voters. It will be even painful for the middle class if the Trump tariff war causes a recession. with layoffs and 401Ks tanking..The result will be a decline in consumer buying as consumers adjust to the new reality.

Trump's trumpeting that manufacturing will "come roaring back to the US" has a timing problem. It takes years to construct new manufacturing facilities, and those facilities will be far more automated, far less employing human workers, so this will generate far fewer jobs than this would have been a decade ago. It will take several years for those facilities to be built, and by that time, both the 2026 and 2028 election seasons will be in the rear view mirror..

The foolers and the fooled...updated April 2, 2025

 The foolers and fooled on Social Security updated to April 1, 2025. Putting together the pieces of why this has become such an issue:

Trump, on the 2024 campaign stump, promised not to touch Social Security. Musk has done what he could to yank the rug out from under that promise. Yes, the size of the benefit checks has not yet been touched. Still, the administration of the whole system is being threatened with plans that would make it moribund, kneecapping the administrative ability to deliver the checks to those who need it the most and keeping down the numbers of future retirees and disabled with new administrative hurdles, limiting who qualify under the law from receiving them..

Oligarchs like Musk have shown little idea of how Social Security works and who it serves. Their ignorance and insensitivity have fueled the fire of outrage at proposals. Democrats are making political hay connecting this issue to oligarchs in the Trump administration, charging that by the numbers, millions must be cut from the budget to offset the tax relief the very wealthy are seeking that reduces income to the treasury. Cutting social security costs is one of the wealthy "pay fors" to at least partially cover their tax cuts. By cutting Social Security's ability to administer its services in order to pay for tax breaks to the rich is a powerful political argument against the Trump regime..Another suspicion is that if the administration is destroyed, Musk would like the contract to administer it, in addition to the $38 billion he already has in federal contracts. That the Social Security program needs to be saved from eventually going bankrupt is true, and it is the largest expense to the federal government, but this cruelty and destruction of its mission is no way to fix it.

As of April 1, 2025, the process to switch paper checks to electronic deposits, the elimination of phone service, or the closure of Social Security branch offices has not yet occurred. The outcry, however, is loud and clear, with the fury arising over Musk's proposed plans and the cuts in service to the very people they serve, making this a hot political issue.

Musk taking the chainsaw to the Social Security administration is a gift to Democrats in the 2026 midterms, who can now run on a platform of saving Social Security. It is a government service that affects an extremely large percentage of the US population. 73 million people received social security benefits, most of whom have paid into the system their entire working lives. They are entitled to those benefits because they paid into it with the promise that it would help them cope with retirement. Twenty percent of those over 65 receiving checks depend on them as their sole income.

From a prior post:

A Social Security administrator warned check recipients. "Save up because the next check may be late." Thanks to Chainsaw Musk, the continuing process of stopping the issuing of paper checks, even to the elderly who did not have electronic deposits, was angering. There would be no one there to fix the glitches or deal with old people's challenges with  computer illiteracy. 

The Social Security payment process was disrupted by the number of administrative personnel who took the offer to retire early under the threat that thousands would be fired. Anger and late payment arrival fears erupted.  https://fortune.com/2025/03/29/social-security-benefits-payment-systems-doge-cuts-paper-checks/   When protests arose, there was a classic "let them eat cake" response from a billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick,  who demonstrated he had no clue about how ordinary people live. Lutnick said his elderly mother-in-law would not complain about a late check, but those who complained were fraudsters.  That comment should be a Democrat's attack ad looped and looped again as another classic example of why oligarchs should never be in control of human services because of their total disconnect from how ordinary people live. Both Musk and Lutnick get the Marie Antoinette award of the decade. (A queen of France, when told the people were out of bread and starving, said, "Let them eat cake". That queen lost her head in the French Revolution.)  https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/social-security-lutnick-doge-checks  A late Social Security check will be a politically explosive wake-up call to older Americans. Most people on Social Security have no money to save and put aside for Musk's stupidity, or as some claim, a strategy for Musk to get the contract to privatize the Social Security administration..

To add insult to injury, the insensitive Musk proposal to eliminate service by telephone and instead force the elderly to use their computers to sign up (whose computer savvy is low to none), or go to in-person social security offices, was further angering. At the same time, a long list of social security offices were to be closed. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-social-security-phones-b2714222.html

What motivated Musk to do this? It is, as the bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks? It's where the moneyis, claimed Trump, 125-year-olds are still on the books. Ah, only the unthinking should swallow that tale: Got any example of any of those 125 being mailed a check? Why? TRUMP: “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years // And money is being paid to many of them, and we are searching right now.” Keep on searching, fools. And those who swallow this are being fooled. Remember, when your check does not arrive, who is to blame? Trump idiocracy. Here’s how many ‘dead people’ really collect Social Security  PER AP fact checker: The databases may list those p iseople, but that does not mean they are getting paid benefits. Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which doesn’t use a specific format for dates, per AP and any number of posts and reports. the COBOL code problem was already reported in 2023 in a audit, but there was no evidence found that checks had been sent to any of them.

Democrats are making political  hay connecting this issue to oligarchs in the Trump administration:that by the numbers, millions must be cut from the budget to offset the tax relief the very  is seeking that reduces income to the treasury. Another suspicion is that if the administration is destroyed, Musk would like the contract to administer it, in addition to the $38 billion he already has in federal contracts.  That the Social Security program needs to be saved from eventually going bankrupt, is true,  but this cruelty and destruction of its mission is no way to fix it.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/01/doge-actions-may-cause-social-security-benefit-interruption-ex-agency-head.html

https://fortune.com/2025/03/03/elon-musk-joe-rogan-podcast-doge-social-security-biggest-ponzi-scheme-of-all-time/

Sen. Booker's heroic 25 hour stand: a jolt to a sleeping Democratic Party?

Sen. Booker's 25-hour stand hopefully jolts a useless Democratic Party. I have just witnessed one of the most moving, eloquent, great events in the US political history..Sen. Cory Booker's incredible 25 plus hour stand in protest to the Trump regime. So much will have been written and rebroadcast, I looked for a summary worthy of what just happened., I saw this by the British press...whose eloquent and moving journalism conveyed the essence and content of Booker's historical stand. Booker makes a stand against Trump – and doesn’t stop for 25 hours | US politics | The Guardian Booker may have redeemed the Democratic Party's anemic response to what is clearly a constitutional crisis that could result in the end of democracy of by and for the people and replaced it with an autocracy headed by Donald Trump.

At the same time, the Democratic National Committee filed a case to challenge the Trump regime's attempt to establish federal control over the various states' ability to control their elections separately. Democrats Sue to Block Trump Bid to Control Elections - Democracy Docket 

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The useless Democratic Party

Mad King Trump: sounds like one at times

 This guy's aspirations to be a dictator know no bounds. Both Orban and Putin have engineered their lifetime positions. It is in keeping for Trump to become an imperialist just like Putin to invade and take over a neighboring country like Canada or Greenland. To him, that must be what he needs to be respected like Putin did in Georgia and Crimea, and now trying to do it to all of Ukraine.. Both imperialism and lifetime dictatorship dreams are red flags of some serious psychological conditions.

I must have been 7 at the end of World War II, but I recall asking my mother" why did Hitler happen?" She taught me a new, very big word to my vocabulary, which stuck with me to this day: "megalomaniac". That may not exactly fit Trump, and I later added" narcissist" to my vocabulary, which is inadequate to describe what I see in Trump.." Mad King" is over the top,..but nonetheless, it signals to me that someone has gone off the rails because his" head was too big for his britches " in seven year old terms. Even that is not exactly right because I am beginning to see that Trump has the britches to go off the rails. He is dangerous to democracy and those who still support the Constitution because he has been able to get so far along the path to dictatorship in three short months and there are no limits to his aspirations. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Are we already living with fascism? Updated through 3/31/2025

How Dictators Keep Control  is about an interesting 20111 study of what psychological traits then current tyrannical dictators shared. It is worth a read.

From my March 9 Facebook posting: I am beginning to see Trump critics calling him a mad king. It is way over the top..but he does seem obsessed with tariffs and Zelensky hatred and getting revenge on any challenger to his power..as he feels he is always being treated unfairly.

What is interesting to me is it isn't a King George the Third or the insane obsessed king of Neuschwanstein who are the current analogies of Trump to a mad king but it is the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter books that have set the standards of what is good and what is evil. Are they the political science textbooks of the younger generations of our tme? I am seeing references to them all the time now in media by younger generations.that it isn't King George the Third or the insane, obsessed king of Neuschwanstein who are the current analogies of Trump to a mad king, but the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter books that have set the standards of what is good and what is evil. Are they the political science textbooks of the younger generations of our time

msn.com

Trump says he is not joking about third presidential term

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was not joking about seeking a third presidential term, which is barred by the U.S. Constitution, but that it was too early to think about doing so. Trump, who took office on January 20 for his second, non-consecutive White Ho...

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