Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Donny’s repeating his first term economic mistakes. His tariff taxes have done nothing to reduce China’s trade surplus. He’s hurting farmers and making direct payments of tariff money to keep them afloat.

China’s Trade Surplus Climbs Past $1 Trillion for First Time

President Trump’s tariffs weren’t enough to hold back the global export flood by China, which pushed past last year’s record in just 11 months.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/business/china-trade-surplus.html

Trump Insists Tariffs Will Buoy the Economy. For Now, He’s on Damage Control.

The president rolled out a $12 billion bailout for farmers as he makes the case that his policy is working — or will soon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/us/politics/trump-trade-affordability.html

What does economics journalist David Wessel at the Brookings Institute think the Fed is going to do?

Trump’s doctor says his MRI results are “perfectly normal”

https://www.axios.com/2025/12/01/trump-mri-results-health-white-house-doctor

An MRI isn’t done routinely, for no particular reason. They must have been looking for something, but Trump is entitled to HIPPA-mandated medical privacy, as we all are. The way his hand was bruised recently, he’s undoubtedly taking Eliquis.

Whatever is wrong with Trump medically, his condition is obviously worsening. For all of his insults about “Sleepy Joe,” he’s following the same aging trendline as Biden.

I’m going to boldly predict that Trump won’t be able to serve out his term. Perhaps even from the 25th Amendment being invoked, as impossible as that sounds at this moment. Not that I think J.D. would be any improvement in the top spot.

Let us assume, for the moment, that labour is not prepared to work for a lower money-wage and that a reduction in the existing level of money-wages would lead, through strikes or otherwise, to a withdrawal from the labour market of labour which is now employed.

– THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY, John Maynard Keynes

I picked that brief passage because it’s a relatively easy one to digest from Keynes, who had a rather inscrutable style of writing. What we now call “affordability” was described by Keynes as the difference between money-wages and real-wages; i.e., take-home pay and its buying power.

Yesterday, at a restaurant I met an employee of my former, longtime employer. He works at the restaurant on weekends as a second job. A young, married dad with a college degree, his full-time technology job doesn’t pay enough for him to make ends meet.

I was underpaid there myself for a long time, but eventually the company made good on its promises. I hope it does for him as well, so he can keep his family in Massachusetts.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-11-25/massachusetts-is-losing-its-competitive-edge-says-local-think-tank

With Larry Summers stepping away from public view for the time being, will we be seeing more of Paul Krugman on Wall St. Week?

I’d be fine with an overall investment increase of 30% over six years. That’s what my retirement money was on track to earn, when enjoying the previous annual interest rate of 4.5%.

The big boys would laugh at that financial return. For them, too much is never enough, and for now AI is floating the market with the big gains they crave endlessly.