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I know nothing of economics, and am not trying to defend Trump's moves. But, it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time

I know nothing of economics, and am not trying to defend Trump's moves. But, it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought, so his options [from his POV] are "do it now" or "don't do it at all", not "do it right". EDIT: Am willing to be learn, would the downvoters explain - do you disagree that this is his view? Or does his understanding not matter when he acts upon it?

alextheparrot 1y ago
That’s a premise that would make me consider the wiseness of my actions.
jillyboel 1y ago
Have you listened to the guy talk? There isn't a comprehensible thought in there, and there hasn't been for years. He's old, older than Biden was when he started his term, and probably suffering from dementia. edit: The pro trump voting bloc showed up. Comment went from +2 to -3 in a minute. This chain will probably be flagged to death within the hour.
- thejazzman 1y ago
  I used to believe this. Now I believe we're supposed to believe this, and continue ignoring how calculated this mess actually is... and it's always too late when enough people catch on :(
  - jillyboel 1y ago
    I'm sure there are competent people whispering evil things in his ear, he appears very easy to influence. Just look at how he keeps flip flopping on Ukraine every time he talks 1-on-1 with Zelenskyy versus when he gets back to being surrounded by his cronies. That doesn't make Trump any less demented.
    - InsideOutSanta 1y ago
      >I'm sure there are competent people whispering evil things in his ear They have a guy who can make the stock go up or down with a tweet, and usually seems to agree with the last thing he's heard. It's not difficult to see how this could be exploited for financial gain.
      - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
        FWIW he seems to be losing this power. The last two weeks it feels like the market seems to be treating his emissions more like "whatever you say, old man" than it was last month. Now it's just about the concrete numbers and "wait and see." It all looks a lot higher right now than I imagine makes any sense, but you know what they say about the market and irrtionality...
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        Some of that is the market doing the "la la la la la can't hear you!" thing, though. Which won't make the problem go away.
        cmrdporcupine 1y ago
        I suspect it's more... routing around the manipulation. If you have people basically obviously doing deliberate dump&pump&dump&pump loops... that only happens a few times before -- on the aggregate -- it gets averaged out by people figuring out that's what is happening. There's plenty of people who are like myself... moved into cash just before Stupid Day, and then have been buying red, selling green every time He has a Nocturnal Idiot Emission / Repent cycle. I made a little bit of money, which is better than losing it... and now I'm just... waiting. There's likely millions of people like this.
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        Some of both. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon went from "get over it" to "oh fuck a recession" in a matter of weeks. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/jamie-dimon-tariff-uncertainty/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/jamie-dimon-tariff-u...
- bsimpson 1y ago
  FWIW, Bill Maher met him, and said his public persona is an act.
  - jillyboel 1y ago
    This isn't even about how much of an asshole Trump is. It's about how he literally cannot string a sentence together.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    It's not worth anything. I don't know where people get this idea that someone's "real" persona consists only of the things they say in intimate private settings. A guy who runs around saying things he knows aren't true and calling people names is a liar and a bully, even if he understands himself to be playing some kind of role or acts politely in 1:1 conversations with Bill Maher.
  - mgkimsal 1y ago
    It might be that his private persona is an act. Why is that not a possibility?
    - echoangle 1y ago
      Depending on the personae (is that a word?), it would be pretty clear, no? If one is really stupid and one is brilliant, how would the brilliant one be an act? If you can act brilliant, you are brilliant.
      - mgkimsal 1y ago
        Trump seems to be a stupid person's ideal of what 'brilliance' is. So... his acting as brilliant is their version of brilliant, regardless of anything else. He is their alternative fact.
        cratermoon 1y ago
        Also the weakling's idea of tough guy and the poor guy's ideal of a rich man.
- sam_goody 1y ago
  I didn't say he is rational or even comprehensible - I said that he believes everyone is out to get him, and that explains the rushing way he acts.
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  The only reason he was the least bit acceptable to begin with is that Biden was even older. But after Biden dropped out, nobody seemed to notice any more.
  - TylerE 1y ago
    That’s because the GOP is mostly as bunch of greedy hypocrites who will say anything to gain power. They aren’t actually thinking or using logic or acting in good faith.
TylerE 1y ago
They’re being fought because many of the things he has done are wildly unconstitutional.
ipaddr 1y ago
He has to do everything at once because he is a lame duck president so that part makes sense. The conflicting messages sudden reversal of plans causes the biggest issues. Normally someone makes a case and tries to sell it to the public, congress. What's the purpose of tariffs to bring in income or to bring back jobs or to level trade agreements? You can't do all things at once and how does that work with other promises like lower prices. The lack of an overall plan is causing the issue. If you take immigration he has a plan and he stuck to it and those are where his highest approval numbers are. Imagine he one day opens the border another day closes it starts kicking out American families the next day invites the world back in. That's his trade policy. Get a solid plan, understand the downsides and if you can live with it stick with it and keep the personal insults out.
- triceratops 1y ago
  > he is a lame duck president Doesn't his party control both houses of Congress?
  - klipt 1y ago
    Then why is he trying to rule 99% solo by executive order instead of working with congress to pass legislation?
    - WillPostForFood 1y ago
      1: I agree he should. Tariffs by presdential order is an obscene power for Congress to delegate. 2: What 10 democrats would work with Trump? It would be gridlock for four years (which is fine).
      - dgfitz 1y ago
        1.) I agree. However, if it other countries can impose tariffs at the drop of a hat and it takes a literal act of congress to pass a tariff, they'll never happen. Would that be a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not. Congress is obviously mostly useless. I was reading, of all things, a buzzfeed a few months ago where the biggest gripes of current house/senate members were along the lines of "it takes way too long to get anything done" and "I'm pretty sure most of my peers drink on the job" I used the "act of congress" phrase intentionally, as it is generally a euphemism that describes, among other things, how long something can take or how hard it is to approve a thing. I don't have a good solution to that problem.
gadders 1y ago
It is also reflective of the fact that mid-terms are in 2 years and election campaigning starts in 3. Even if you believe tariffs will work, there will be short term pain. Best to run through that now in the hope that economic indicators are improving come election time.
- chasd00 1y ago
  that's been my thought on the admin's motiviations, do the hard part now and hopefully ride the wave back up through the midterms. voters have a short memory.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
    Sure, but what's going to cause a recovery from the Trump-cession we're about to enter? The pain is obvious, but where's the gain? America can't compete on cost with Chinese manufacturing, else it'd already be doing so, so you just end up with expensive "made in USA" stuff rather than cheap "made in China" stuff. The price hikes will be here to stay if that's the path we're going down. How do we get cheap fruit & veg in the winter when it's not growing season in the US? If we're not going to import it, then I guess we need to grow it here in hothouses, and that's not going to be cheap either. I'm guessing the midterms will be a bloodbath for the Republicans, and Trump is unlikely to care unless he takes his own 3rd term talk seriously.
fizx 1y ago
If Trump believes that, it would reflect a complete lack of self-confidence in his negotiating skills.
intended 1y ago
Your question: Is it possible. Answer: Anything is 'possible'. This is a sufficient question, and sufficient answer for a meager understanding of how economies work. For the kind of place America is, with the kind of intellectual, economic, and procedural fire power it holds? Again, he isn't President of some backwater, and he isn't lacking for advisors, to give even more sophisticated analyses than what any Econ 101 student can do. And now, to your own point: > he tries [even just being president] will be fought, by who? the Repubs have all 3 branches. Thank god, otherwise people would spend another decade ignoring the obvious and blaming forces other than Trump and Trumpism for Trump's actions. --- The emperor has no clothes. Everything else, is people projecting from past Presidents upon the tableau they see.
gotoeleven 1y ago
[flagged]
- gosub100 1y ago
  I am surprised the mods haven't made an announcement to address the shift towards politics. It could be that there's no way to avoid it, but everything on HN has become more political lately, and as you say, there is only one right way to think or you're not part of the in group. I don't care about politics and I wish this place could focus on what tech things people built or the nuance of some programming language. No, the solution isn't to just step over the steaming piles of dog shit that interleave the remaining tech posts. Maybe we should crowd fund them all memberships to the Daily Kos and block their accounts ?
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    Most of the audience here is technical, but with a bent toward the startup/web audience. The economic instability is a topic of interest for that segment.
    - sanderjd 1y ago
      Yep, this is a political story that is unusually relevant here (as is the DOGE stuff). This has a lot of impact on business at large and arguably an outsized impact on both high tech and entrepreneurial businesses. It would be deeply weird if it weren't being discussed here.
  - goatlover 1y ago
    > I don't care about politics It's this kind of person that allows autocrats to take over. There's too many of you with your head in the sand. There's still plenty of technical posts on here, but when you have a tech billionaire appointed to spearhead an agency dismantling Federal agencies in order to give the executive unchecked power and deregulate tech industries, it's going to be a recurring story on here. So is Trump achieving Project2025 goals, since I'm guessing most hackers don't want to live under Christian Nationalism.
wokwokwok 1y ago
You’re being down voted because you’re not saying anything meaningful. Yes, you can argue that [person] is [performing an action] because they believe, from their POV that [reason1, reason2, reason3]. > Or does [what person believes] not matter when they act upon it? Yes. What people choose to believe is distinct from fundamental baseline reality. Let me put it another way for you; if I believe that fairies have invaded from space and I go out smashing peoples cars because, I personally, believe that this will make the fairies go home… …does it help to argue about whether I believe in fairies or not? It does not. The arguement must be about whether fairies exist in baseline reality or not. What I believe is not a point worth discussing. …so, to take a step back to your argument: Does he believe this will help? Who. Gives. A. Flying. Truck? Does it matter what he believes? Can we speculate what he thinks? It’s a useless and meaningless exercise and a logical fallacy; because anything can be justified if the only criteria are “you believe it will work”. The discussion worth having is, in baseline reality, will it actually help? Which is what the post you are replying to is addressing; but instead or following that up, you’ve moved this discussion into a meaningless sub thread of unprovable points about what people may or may not believe. Which is why you’ve received my downvote.
- jaqingoffagain 1y ago
  [flagged]
- mystified5016 1y ago
  This is a concept that is seemingly alien to Americans. The consequences of your actions matter even if you disagree. When your actions hurt people, you've still hurt people. Doesn't matter what you thought you were doing. You see this kind of thinking through all levels of American life. You, personally, are the only person on the planet who matters, fuck everyone else and let them deal with the consequences. You run a red light and someone else gets T-boned and killed? That's their problem, you got to your destination 3 minutes faster. The trump administration is simply the manifestation of how sick our country is. It's going to take us generations to recover from this kind of societal illness, if we ever can.
sophacles 1y ago
I downvoted you because it's politics, and there is always opposition, a plan worth acting on includes handling the opposition and having contingencies. This is true for every politician in every context for the history and pre-history of humanity. The fact that the MAGAts are so utterly incompetent that even the idea of opposition sends them into chaos and whining fits while they control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government is itself supportive of if the "these morons are too stupid to make a plan" type theories. Instead of planning they attacked anyone who asked how they would handle the obvious consequences, they deny that the obvious consequences that are clearly happening are actually happening. They attack anyone asking for metrics that the plan is working, make unbacked claims that they are in talks to fix the situation that caused the trade war (while refusing to even articulate what the goals are and attacking anyone who asks that too). They aren't even communicating with each other to coordinate something that looks like a plan: how many times have one group of lackeys been talking about plan X while another group or the president himself does the opposite to the surprise of everyone. There is no evidence that one of the key bullet points of a campaign platform was ever more than a bullet point - no plan, no attempt to prepare for consequences, nothing indicative of a plan at all. They truly believed that imposing tarrifs would magically make factories appear overnight.
RHSeeger 1y ago
I'd be willing to consider that, but he's doing a ton of things that very clearly have _no_ upside and obvious downsides. As one example, he literally fired entire departments that were _generating_ money for the government. It's too clear that he's just doing whatever he happens to think of without putting any thought into whether it will actually be helpful. I am firmly of the opinion that his only goal is the be the center of attention, and the more outrageous the things he does are, the better. Ie, there's no such thing as negative publicity.
- padjo 1y ago
  You forgot his other goal m, which is to make him and his family wealthier. The back and forth on tariffs was certainly insider traded to hell.
- sisjfmalalxm 1y ago
  The dismantling of government is an ideological goal — increasing government revenue isn’t a primary objective
  - ted_dunning 1y ago
    It isn't Trump's ideological goal. His only ideology is being the center of attention and twisting arms to get bribes. Other people in the administration or in the penumbra may have ideologies more advanced than this, but Trump definitely does not.
  - varelse 1y ago
    [dead]
dfxm12 1y ago
I downvoted you because there's nothing to suggest this viewpoint is grounded in reality, so it's not really worth discussing. His leadership style has always been autocratic & opposition from SCOTUS and his own party is pretty much non existent and the opposition from the opposition party is soft (not that they have the numbers to do too much anyway). He has basically ignored whatever pushback there had been in other policy. He could do it the right way, if he wanted to.
drecked 1y ago
What is this “it” you speak of. Is it the imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico? Or is it the rescinding of those tariffs a day later. Or is it the pause but when the pause was supposed to end nothing really changed? Or is it the liberation day tariffs on everyone? Or the subsequent reduction of liberation day tariffs a few days later but an increase in tariffs against China. Or is the “it” the fact that the administration reveals these major market moving actions a few hours before making them public to friends, family and donors? Once anyone can figure out what “it” is supposed to be one can have a discussion about whether it’s good or not.
- wombat-man 1y ago
  Yeah, worse than the tariffs is the drastic policy changes by the day/hour. You can't expect companies to make long term capital investments when everything is in flux like this.
vonneumannstan 1y ago
>without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought, so his options [from his POV] are "do it now" or "don't do it at all", not "do it right" This seems completely wrong and ascribes motivations to Trump he clearly doesn't have. I think his framing is much more "everything I do is correct therefore this will work." Everything he does makes sense when framed that way.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  Yeah, I think there's plenty of evidence to contradicts the theory that Trump is somehow "now or never" decisive. For example, his habit of promising all sorts of things in "two weeks" and then doing nothing. [0] Neither "now", nor "never", but always "soon". Or look at the stream of inconsistency from the White House about quantum-mechanical tariffs, as they endlessly mutated between: On, off, on but only when being observed, paused, never paused that was fake news, on but a different set of tariffs, off because a fabulous deal was made but don't ask about the details because you wouldn't know that country anyway, etc. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLmhF7TgzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLmhF7TgzY
  - kergonath 1y ago
    > For example, his habit of promising all sorts of things in "two weeks" and then doing nothing. [0] Neither "now", nor "never", but always "soon". Something he has in common with Musk.
juniperus 1y ago
It has to do with countries not buying US treasuries. That used to be how the dollar system worked. Now that countries aren’t, tariffs are being used as an alternative. You can read the war finance article series for some background: https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/zoltan-pozsar-aug-2-war-and-interest-rates-1.pdf https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/zoltan...
- robbiep 1y ago
  There is no issue with countries buying us treasuries. They sail off shelves. Until the current administration started to make it look like there’s a possibility that the country may bankrupt itself, which threw a risk component into US debt for like the first time ever
  - HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
    I think the real risk isn't USA going bankrupt as much as the dollar losing significant value relative to other currencies, thereby making holding US debt a bad deal for overseas holders, and/or possibility that Trump could do something previously unthinkable such as stopping interest payments on debt or trying to "make a deal" and renegotiate payments in some way.
coliveira 1y ago
Trump's goal is strengthening his position in power. Changing the economy so that companies, states, and foreign countries depend on him is just what he wants.
sanderjd 1y ago
I didn't downvote, but I don't think this seems like a very well thought out description of Trump's behavior. He doesn't care if he "will be fought", he wants to be fought, dramatically, because that's the show he's putting on. The fight is the whole point.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Perhaps, but who's the audience? Trump's 1st term fighting the "fake news" media was popular with MAGA and didn't cost them anything. Fighting rest of world on trade might also be popular in theory "trump being tough!", but will MAGA voters really eat it up if they are personally suffering financially as a result (& they'll be suffering the most since red state incomes tend to be lower than blue state ones). Of course maybe the audience is Trump himself. He enjoys playing tough guy and could care less about the people who voted him in, or anyone else for that matter.
  - sanderjd 1y ago
    No, I don't think people are going to eat it up. I think he's screwing this all up, badly. He's an adept showman but very far from being infallible.
jancsika 1y ago
> "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" Testing tariffs in realtime is nothing like, say, fuzzing idempotent methods in a framework. It is a lot more like testing sending out spam from a set of static IP addresses. It's not just that you could fail-- it's that you could end up fucking up those IP's ability to send email into the foreseeable future.
FrustratedMonky 1y ago
You are making a valid point, in form of a question, despite the downvotes. Presidents do typically get a pass during the first 100 days, and they do try to fit in as much as possible before inertia bogs down whatever they are trying to do. I've heard the same said about Roosevelt (FDR). That he came in and made radical changes, defied courts, upset the norms, etc... The problem is that the current president is going a bit more 'radical' than anybody has experienced since, lets say late 30's Germany. Like the executive order to send military equipment to the police to, lets say, 'quell dissent'. So even thought Presidents do make big moves in the first 100 days, this is so far beyond norms, that saying it is "just typical of presidents in first 100 days" is really downplaying what is happening.
VincentEvans 1y ago
It seems that many did not come across https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes … and are still busy trying to figure out the allegedly intricate but evidently incorporeal designs this administration is wearing.
kergonath 1y ago
> it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought By whom? He has a subservient congress and the Supreme Court in his pocket. And he is willing to ignore anything the judiciary says anyway. Who is in a situation to hinder him right now, and in the next 2 years, in the US?

alextheparrot 1y ago

That’s a premise that would make me consider the wiseness of my actions.

jillyboel 1y ago

Have you listened to the guy talk? There isn't a comprehensible thought in there, and there hasn't been for years. He's old, older than Biden was when he started his term, and probably suffering from dementia. edit: The pro trump voting bloc showed up. Comment went from +2 to -3 in a minute. This chain will probably be flagged to death within the hour.

thejazzman 1y ago
I used to believe this. Now I believe we're supposed to believe this, and continue ignoring how calculated this mess actually is... and it's always too late when enough people catch on :(
- jillyboel 1y ago
  I'm sure there are competent people whispering evil things in his ear, he appears very easy to influence. Just look at how he keeps flip flopping on Ukraine every time he talks 1-on-1 with Zelenskyy versus when he gets back to being surrounded by his cronies. That doesn't make Trump any less demented.
  - InsideOutSanta 1y ago
    >I'm sure there are competent people whispering evil things in his ear They have a guy who can make the stock go up or down with a tweet, and usually seems to agree with the last thing he's heard. It's not difficult to see how this could be exploited for financial gain.
    - cmrdporcupine 1y ago
      FWIW he seems to be losing this power. The last two weeks it feels like the market seems to be treating his emissions more like "whatever you say, old man" than it was last month. Now it's just about the concrete numbers and "wait and see." It all looks a lot higher right now than I imagine makes any sense, but you know what they say about the market and irrtionality...
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Some of that is the market doing the "la la la la la can't hear you!" thing, though. Which won't make the problem go away.
        cmrdporcupine 1y ago
        I suspect it's more... routing around the manipulation. If you have people basically obviously doing deliberate dump&pump&dump&pump loops... that only happens a few times before -- on the aggregate -- it gets averaged out by people figuring out that's what is happening. There's plenty of people who are like myself... moved into cash just before Stupid Day, and then have been buying red, selling green every time He has a Nocturnal Idiot Emission / Repent cycle. I made a little bit of money, which is better than losing it... and now I'm just... waiting. There's likely millions of people like this.
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        Some of both. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon went from "get over it" to "oh fuck a recession" in a matter of weeks. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/jamie-dimon-tariff-uncertainty/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/jamie-dimon-tariff-u...
bsimpson 1y ago
FWIW, Bill Maher met him, and said his public persona is an act.
- jillyboel 1y ago
  This isn't even about how much of an asshole Trump is. It's about how he literally cannot string a sentence together.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  It's not worth anything. I don't know where people get this idea that someone's "real" persona consists only of the things they say in intimate private settings. A guy who runs around saying things he knows aren't true and calling people names is a liar and a bully, even if he understands himself to be playing some kind of role or acts politely in 1:1 conversations with Bill Maher.
- mgkimsal 1y ago
  It might be that his private persona is an act. Why is that not a possibility?
  - echoangle 1y ago
    Depending on the personae (is that a word?), it would be pretty clear, no? If one is really stupid and one is brilliant, how would the brilliant one be an act? If you can act brilliant, you are brilliant.
    - mgkimsal 1y ago
      Trump seems to be a stupid person's ideal of what 'brilliance' is. So... his acting as brilliant is their version of brilliant, regardless of anything else. He is their alternative fact.
      - cratermoon 1y ago
        Also the weakling's idea of tough guy and the poor guy's ideal of a rich man.
sam_goody 1y ago
I didn't say he is rational or even comprehensible - I said that he believes everyone is out to get him, and that explains the rushing way he acts.
fuzzfactor 1y ago
The only reason he was the least bit acceptable to begin with is that Biden was even older. But after Biden dropped out, nobody seemed to notice any more.
- TylerE 1y ago
  That’s because the GOP is mostly as bunch of greedy hypocrites who will say anything to gain power. They aren’t actually thinking or using logic or acting in good faith.

TylerE 1y ago

They’re being fought because many of the things he has done are wildly unconstitutional.

ipaddr 1y ago

He has to do everything at once because he is a lame duck president so that part makes sense. The conflicting messages sudden reversal of plans causes the biggest issues. Normally someone makes a case and tries to sell it to the public, congress. What's the purpose of tariffs to bring in income or to bring back jobs or to level trade agreements? You can't do all things at once and how does that work with other promises like lower prices. The lack of an overall plan is causing the issue. If you take immigration he has a plan and he stuck to it and those are where his highest approval numbers are. Imagine he one day opens the border another day closes it starts kicking out American families the next day invites the world back in. That's his trade policy. Get a solid plan, understand the downsides and if you can live with it stick with it and keep the personal insults out.

triceratops 1y ago
> he is a lame duck president Doesn't his party control both houses of Congress?
- klipt 1y ago
  Then why is he trying to rule 99% solo by executive order instead of working with congress to pass legislation?
  - WillPostForFood 1y ago
    1: I agree he should. Tariffs by presdential order is an obscene power for Congress to delegate. 2: What 10 democrats would work with Trump? It would be gridlock for four years (which is fine).
    - dgfitz 1y ago
      1.) I agree. However, if it other countries can impose tariffs at the drop of a hat and it takes a literal act of congress to pass a tariff, they'll never happen. Would that be a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not. Congress is obviously mostly useless. I was reading, of all things, a buzzfeed a few months ago where the biggest gripes of current house/senate members were along the lines of "it takes way too long to get anything done" and "I'm pretty sure most of my peers drink on the job" I used the "act of congress" phrase intentionally, as it is generally a euphemism that describes, among other things, how long something can take or how hard it is to approve a thing. I don't have a good solution to that problem.

gadders 1y ago

It is also reflective of the fact that mid-terms are in 2 years and election campaigning starts in 3. Even if you believe tariffs will work, there will be short term pain. Best to run through that now in the hope that economic indicators are improving come election time.

chasd00 1y ago
that's been my thought on the admin's motiviations, do the hard part now and hopefully ride the wave back up through the midterms. voters have a short memory.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  Sure, but what's going to cause a recovery from the Trump-cession we're about to enter? The pain is obvious, but where's the gain? America can't compete on cost with Chinese manufacturing, else it'd already be doing so, so you just end up with expensive "made in USA" stuff rather than cheap "made in China" stuff. The price hikes will be here to stay if that's the path we're going down. How do we get cheap fruit & veg in the winter when it's not growing season in the US? If we're not going to import it, then I guess we need to grow it here in hothouses, and that's not going to be cheap either. I'm guessing the midterms will be a bloodbath for the Republicans, and Trump is unlikely to care unless he takes his own 3rd term talk seriously.

fizx 1y ago

If Trump believes that, it would reflect a complete lack of self-confidence in his negotiating skills.

intended 1y ago

Your question: Is it possible. Answer: Anything is 'possible'. This is a sufficient question, and sufficient answer for a meager understanding of how economies work. For the kind of place America is, with the kind of intellectual, economic, and procedural fire power it holds? Again, he isn't President of some backwater, and he isn't lacking for advisors, to give even more sophisticated analyses than what any Econ 101 student can do. And now, to your own point: > he tries [even just being president] will be fought, by who? the Repubs have all 3 branches. Thank god, otherwise people would spend another decade ignoring the obvious and blaming forces other than Trump and Trumpism for Trump's actions. --- The emperor has no clothes. Everything else, is people projecting from past Presidents upon the tableau they see.

gotoeleven 1y ago

[flagged]

gosub100 1y ago
I am surprised the mods haven't made an announcement to address the shift towards politics. It could be that there's no way to avoid it, but everything on HN has become more political lately, and as you say, there is only one right way to think or you're not part of the in group. I don't care about politics and I wish this place could focus on what tech things people built or the nuance of some programming language. No, the solution isn't to just step over the steaming piles of dog shit that interleave the remaining tech posts. Maybe we should crowd fund them all memberships to the Daily Kos and block their accounts ?
- bee_rider 1y ago
  Most of the audience here is technical, but with a bent toward the startup/web audience. The economic instability is a topic of interest for that segment.
  - sanderjd 1y ago
    Yep, this is a political story that is unusually relevant here (as is the DOGE stuff). This has a lot of impact on business at large and arguably an outsized impact on both high tech and entrepreneurial businesses. It would be deeply weird if it weren't being discussed here.
- goatlover 1y ago
  > I don't care about politics It's this kind of person that allows autocrats to take over. There's too many of you with your head in the sand. There's still plenty of technical posts on here, but when you have a tech billionaire appointed to spearhead an agency dismantling Federal agencies in order to give the executive unchecked power and deregulate tech industries, it's going to be a recurring story on here. So is Trump achieving Project2025 goals, since I'm guessing most hackers don't want to live under Christian Nationalism.

wokwokwok 1y ago

You’re being down voted because you’re not saying anything meaningful. Yes, you can argue that [person] is [performing an action] because they believe, from their POV that [reason1, reason2, reason3]. > Or does [what person believes] not matter when they act upon it? Yes. What people choose to believe is distinct from fundamental baseline reality. Let me put it another way for you; if I believe that fairies have invaded from space and I go out smashing peoples cars because, I personally, believe that this will make the fairies go home… …does it help to argue about whether I believe in fairies or not? It does not. The arguement must be about whether fairies exist in baseline reality or not. What I believe is not a point worth discussing. …so, to take a step back to your argument: Does he believe this will help? Who. Gives. A. Flying. Truck? Does it matter what he believes? Can we speculate what he thinks? It’s a useless and meaningless exercise and a logical fallacy; because anything can be justified if the only criteria are “you believe it will work”. The discussion worth having is, in baseline reality, will it actually help? Which is what the post you are replying to is addressing; but instead or following that up, you’ve moved this discussion into a meaningless sub thread of unprovable points about what people may or may not believe. Which is why you’ve received my downvote.

jaqingoffagain 1y ago
[flagged]
mystified5016 1y ago
This is a concept that is seemingly alien to Americans. The consequences of your actions matter even if you disagree. When your actions hurt people, you've still hurt people. Doesn't matter what you thought you were doing. You see this kind of thinking through all levels of American life. You, personally, are the only person on the planet who matters, fuck everyone else and let them deal with the consequences. You run a red light and someone else gets T-boned and killed? That's their problem, you got to your destination 3 minutes faster. The trump administration is simply the manifestation of how sick our country is. It's going to take us generations to recover from this kind of societal illness, if we ever can.

sophacles 1y ago

I downvoted you because it's politics, and there is always opposition, a plan worth acting on includes handling the opposition and having contingencies. This is true for every politician in every context for the history and pre-history of humanity. The fact that the MAGAts are so utterly incompetent that even the idea of opposition sends them into chaos and whining fits while they control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government is itself supportive of if the "these morons are too stupid to make a plan" type theories. Instead of planning they attacked anyone who asked how they would handle the obvious consequences, they deny that the obvious consequences that are clearly happening are actually happening. They attack anyone asking for metrics that the plan is working, make unbacked claims that they are in talks to fix the situation that caused the trade war (while refusing to even articulate what the goals are and attacking anyone who asks that too). They aren't even communicating with each other to coordinate something that looks like a plan: how many times have one group of lackeys been talking about plan X while another group or the president himself does the opposite to the surprise of everyone. There is no evidence that one of the key bullet points of a campaign platform was ever more than a bullet point - no plan, no attempt to prepare for consequences, nothing indicative of a plan at all. They truly believed that imposing tarrifs would magically make factories appear overnight.

RHSeeger 1y ago

I'd be willing to consider that, but he's doing a ton of things that very clearly have _no_ upside and obvious downsides. As one example, he literally fired entire departments that were _generating_ money for the government. It's too clear that he's just doing whatever he happens to think of without putting any thought into whether it will actually be helpful. I am firmly of the opinion that his only goal is the be the center of attention, and the more outrageous the things he does are, the better. Ie, there's no such thing as negative publicity.

padjo 1y ago
You forgot his other goal m, which is to make him and his family wealthier. The back and forth on tariffs was certainly insider traded to hell.
sisjfmalalxm 1y ago
The dismantling of government is an ideological goal — increasing government revenue isn’t a primary objective
- ted_dunning 1y ago
  It isn't Trump's ideological goal. His only ideology is being the center of attention and twisting arms to get bribes. Other people in the administration or in the penumbra may have ideologies more advanced than this, but Trump definitely does not.
- varelse 1y ago
  [dead]

dfxm12 1y ago

I downvoted you because there's nothing to suggest this viewpoint is grounded in reality, so it's not really worth discussing. His leadership style has always been autocratic & opposition from SCOTUS and his own party is pretty much non existent and the opposition from the opposition party is soft (not that they have the numbers to do too much anyway). He has basically ignored whatever pushback there had been in other policy. He could do it the right way, if he wanted to.

drecked 1y ago

What is this “it” you speak of. Is it the imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico? Or is it the rescinding of those tariffs a day later. Or is it the pause but when the pause was supposed to end nothing really changed? Or is it the liberation day tariffs on everyone? Or the subsequent reduction of liberation day tariffs a few days later but an increase in tariffs against China. Or is the “it” the fact that the administration reveals these major market moving actions a few hours before making them public to friends, family and donors? Once anyone can figure out what “it” is supposed to be one can have a discussion about whether it’s good or not.

wombat-man 1y ago
Yeah, worse than the tariffs is the drastic policy changes by the day/hour. You can't expect companies to make long term capital investments when everything is in flux like this.

vonneumannstan 1y ago

>without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought, so his options [from his POV] are "do it now" or "don't do it at all", not "do it right" This seems completely wrong and ascribes motivations to Trump he clearly doesn't have. I think his framing is much more "everything I do is correct therefore this will work." Everything he does makes sense when framed that way.

Terr_ 1y ago
Yeah, I think there's plenty of evidence to contradicts the theory that Trump is somehow "now or never" decisive. For example, his habit of promising all sorts of things in "two weeks" and then doing nothing. [0] Neither "now", nor "never", but always "soon". Or look at the stream of inconsistency from the White House about quantum-mechanical tariffs, as they endlessly mutated between: On, off, on but only when being observed, paused, never paused that was fake news, on but a different set of tariffs, off because a fabulous deal was made but don't ask about the details because you wouldn't know that country anyway, etc. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLmhF7TgzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZLmhF7TgzY
- kergonath 1y ago
  > For example, his habit of promising all sorts of things in "two weeks" and then doing nothing. [0] Neither "now", nor "never", but always "soon". Something he has in common with Musk.

juniperus 1y ago

It has to do with countries not buying US treasuries. That used to be how the dollar system worked. Now that countries aren’t, tariffs are being used as an alternative. You can read the war finance article series for some background: https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/zoltan-pozsar-aug-2-war-and-interest-rates-1.pdf https://advisoranalyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/zoltan...

robbiep 1y ago
There is no issue with countries buying us treasuries. They sail off shelves. Until the current administration started to make it look like there’s a possibility that the country may bankrupt itself, which threw a risk component into US debt for like the first time ever
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
  I think the real risk isn't USA going bankrupt as much as the dollar losing significant value relative to other currencies, thereby making holding US debt a bad deal for overseas holders, and/or possibility that Trump could do something previously unthinkable such as stopping interest payments on debt or trying to "make a deal" and renegotiate payments in some way.

coliveira 1y ago

Trump's goal is strengthening his position in power. Changing the economy so that companies, states, and foreign countries depend on him is just what he wants.

sanderjd 1y ago

I didn't downvote, but I don't think this seems like a very well thought out description of Trump's behavior. He doesn't care if he "will be fought", he wants to be fought, dramatically, because that's the show he's putting on. The fight is the whole point.

HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
Perhaps, but who's the audience? Trump's 1st term fighting the "fake news" media was popular with MAGA and didn't cost them anything. Fighting rest of world on trade might also be popular in theory "trump being tough!", but will MAGA voters really eat it up if they are personally suffering financially as a result (& they'll be suffering the most since red state incomes tend to be lower than blue state ones). Of course maybe the audience is Trump himself. He enjoys playing tough guy and could care less about the people who voted him in, or anyone else for that matter.
- sanderjd 1y ago
  No, I don't think people are going to eat it up. I think he's screwing this all up, badly. He's an adept showman but very far from being infallible.

jancsika 1y ago

> "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" Testing tariffs in realtime is nothing like, say, fuzzing idempotent methods in a framework. It is a lot more like testing sending out spam from a set of static IP addresses. It's not just that you could fail-- it's that you could end up fucking up those IP's ability to send email into the foreseeable future.

FrustratedMonky 1y ago

You are making a valid point, in form of a question, despite the downvotes. Presidents do typically get a pass during the first 100 days, and they do try to fit in as much as possible before inertia bogs down whatever they are trying to do. I've heard the same said about Roosevelt (FDR). That he came in and made radical changes, defied courts, upset the norms, etc... The problem is that the current president is going a bit more 'radical' than anybody has experienced since, lets say late 30's Germany. Like the executive order to send military equipment to the police to, lets say, 'quell dissent'. So even thought Presidents do make big moves in the first 100 days, this is so far beyond norms, that saying it is "just typical of presidents in first 100 days" is really downplaying what is happening.

VincentEvans 1y ago

It seems that many did not come across https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes … and are still busy trying to figure out the allegedly intricate but evidently incorporeal designs this administration is wearing.

kergonath 1y ago

> it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought By whom? He has a subservient congress and the Supreme Court in his pocket. And he is willing to ignore anything the judiciary says anyway. Who is in a situation to hinder him right now, and in the next 2 years, in the US?