Trump on TruthSocial (Bloomberg):
“TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change”
Figure 1: EPU (blue, left scale), and centered 7 day moving average (red, right scale), SF Fed News Sentiment index (green). Red dashed line at “Liberation Day”. Source: policyuncertainty.com, SF Fed, and author’s calculations.
“TARIFFS WILL START BEING PAID ON AUGUST 1, 2025. There has been no change to this date, and there will be no change”
Just yesterday when asked if the August 1 date was firm, Trump replied:
“No, I would say firm, but not 100 percent firm”.
Who ya gonna believe, Donald Trump on Monday or Donald Trump on Tuesday? That’s Bessent’s so-called “strategic uncertainty” in action.
The Bloomberg article ends with: “That caveat — paired with Trump signaling that he was still negotiating additional deals — fueled skepticism among some in Washington and on Wall Street that the president would follow through on his latest tariff threats.”
Hey, you think?
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on farm laborers: “There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly.”
So a Down to the Countryside Movement? I think we have seen this before.
Only about 4 million of those 34 million don’t already have jobs so they really are proposing a Down to the Countryside Movement. You can see the numbers for yourself here:
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/05/15/is-there-really-an-epidemic-of-workless-medicaid-recipients/
There are no mass deportations. Brooke’s con instead is the surge of illegal immigrants into rural areas is already filling that demand.
It’s a distraction from all those mega millionaire christian voters who chose tax reductions and slashing crucial public safety functions not realizing until July 4 that the price was their daughters. One doubts that their losses will change their votes; but a deep sadness not for those who voted for this; but for the innocents sacrificed to greed. There are so many more who will suffer the same fate; but not being the offspring of the elite it will pass without notice.
Have you heard? That flood was caused by the “weather weapon”, not by anything natural. This is from over two months ago, not made up on the spot for the Texas flood:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-staff-urged-not-visit-214424708.html
Yes, we prefer a brainless, us-against-them conspiracy theory to admitting that climate change is real. That’s who we are now.
“It’s a distraction from all those mega millionaire christian voters…”
Shameful, awful prejudice.
It is not shameful awful or prejudice but true anne. What is shameful is trying to shame the truth.
Or even more shameful Abbott’s deflection of his greedy incompetent failing of those children. So stop your lectures to those of us you deem shameful for stating the factual truth; and reflect on your own shamefulness.
Says the shameless defender of China’s enslavement of the Uyghur people. What a hypocrit.
The idiot speaks..
“Trump says he will impose 50% tariff on copper imports”
So we want to “bring manufacturing back to the US” but a basic raw material – copper – will now cost 50% more here than elsewhere in the world. Hmmm…
There is a good reason to consider certain things of sufficient national security interest to make sure we have some production of them here at home. But the tool to make that happen for raw materials is not tariffs. If this idiocy goes through we will make our industries using copper in their products unable to compete on the world markets.
Tariffs are much like “Mass Deportations”. Its a delusion to grift. Nothing more or less. ICE raids higher in LA??? None in North Dakota or Idaho. ICE had dozen of raids in both states a year ago. Fwiw, I am a former agent and have tendrils still.
Here is our president of the United States whom Secretary Bessent proclaims is “the most economically sophisticated president, certainly for 100 years, perhaps in history.”
Trump: The country had a Great Depression. And then after the depression, long after it started, they brought back tariffs to see if they could save it. But it took them 25 years to get out of the Great Depression. A lot of people don’t understand that.”
I particularly like that last sentence — “See, I’m smart and you’re stupid.”
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Copper? Seriously? We produce only about half of the copper we use.
In its April survey, NAHB members estimated that tariffs would add an average of $10,900 to the cost of building a home. That was before the announcement of the copper tariff. Oh, and NAHB did not ask about the effect of immigration policy on building costs, so pile some more on for that. Not hearing much from Republicans about the housing shortage.
Off topic – Volcano Time!:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/08/climate-crisis-melting-glaciers-ice-caps-volcanic-eruptions-chile-antartica-volcanoes
Turns out, glaciers and ice caps exert a heck of a lot of pressure on underlying geologic structures. At the edge of tectonic plates, that pressure can keep magma bottled up un the earth. As big ice melts, that pressure is reduced and an increase in volcanic activity is the likely result.
What might an increase in volcanic activity mean? Check out the Late Antiquity Little Ice Age for ine example:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Antique_Little_Ice_Age
Yep, a heavy dose of atmospheric ash would probably slow the warming of the atmosphere. The cost of this particular “remedy”, however, would likely be very high. Less heat, but more lung disease anf a big increase in climate variability.
The future sure is looking bright. No need to think about taking any action.