This is nonsense that gets spread way too often. The wealthy benefited from Covid, but they did not benefit from the Great Depression. Billionaires are shortsighted hoarders who can’t help but screw themselves over in their race to the top end. They really are so fucking stupid and greedy that they will crash the economy by accident, AGAIN.
Plenty of people supported Coolidge and Hoover until they felt it in their wallets. This is going to hurt, for everyone, and it will provide opportunities to change minds. Not just the minds of Trump supporters, but the minds of everyone who thinks there’s no point fighting. We have a lot of common ground opening up beneath our feet.
This is a terrible mistake for them to make. The Republican party has made this mistake before. It lead to the New Deal. History sure is rhyming, and things aren’t playing out quite the same, but we have a chance - however small it is - to take advantage of their mistake again, and turn things around.
The evidence that Trump’s Administration themselves cited in their official explanation of their tariff “calculations” (trade deficit / imports) flat out states that when the US tries to tariff other countries:
The source (Cavallo et al, 2021) clearly demonstrates that American tariffs are paid directly by Americans in both directions, meaning out of everyone on Earth, US tariffs screw the US the most. Trump’s administration legitimized the source by citing that research for its calculations on the tariff rates.
The Trade Representative’s explanation freely admits that the stupid parameters were chosen more or less arbitrarily, and they cited the paper to justify their position on tariff price throughput but conveniently didn’t list it in their “References” section.
Our analyses indicate that the price incidence of US import tariffs falls largely on the United States… Our results suggest that retailers are absorbing a significant share of the increase in the cost of affected imports by earning lower profit margins on those goods… [These analyses reveal] that the recent tariffs applied by foreign governments on US exports have affected total foreign import prices far less than was the case for the recent US tariffs
The meme is referencing the official US Trade Representative’s explanation1 of the tariffs, where yes, the math really is as stupid as it seems, but it gets worse.
The research that Trump’s team used to determine that “calculation” flat out states that when the US tries to tariff other countries:
The source clearly demonstrates that American tariffs are paid directly by Americans in both directions, meaning out of everyone on Earth the tariffs screw the US the most. Trump’s administration legitimized the source by citing that research for its calculations on the tariff rates.
The explanation freely admits that the stupid parameters were chosen more or less arbitrarily, and they cited the paper (Cavallo et al 2021)2 but conveniently didn’t list it in their “References” section.
Our analyses indicate that the price incidence of US import tariffs falls largely on the United States… Our results suggest that retailers are absorbing a significant share of the increase in the cost of affected imports by earning lower profit margins on those goods… [These analyses reveal] that the recent tariffs applied by foreign governments on US exports have affected total foreign import prices far less than was the case for the recent US tariffs
He said for us to go out and cause some good trouble. Necessary trouble to redeem the soul of our nation. I want you to redeem the dream. Let’s be bold in America, not demean and degrade Americans. Not divide us against each other. […] This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right, it’s right or wrong. Let’s get in good trouble. My friends, Madame President, I yield the floor.
Don’t let anyone, anyone, pretend that this was business as usual. Senator Booker came out and gave people what they’ve been asking for - a call to action. This isn’t empty democrat promises, this isn’t “both sides” bullshit. This was a United States Senator telling the public that shit has hit the fan, and that politics isn’t enough anymore.
Fuck the apathy. Fuck the doomerism. This wasn’t business as usual, this won’t be business as usual. Listen to what the man had to say. Get together. Trouble is coming whether we like it or not. May as well make it good trouble.
We are in agreement. Either everyone has the right to due process, or there is no due process at all.
This is really not true. The wealthy aren’t playing 4D chess with the economy, they are just as short-sighted behind closed doors. The Great Depression fucked a lot of wealthy people up and turned the entire nation against them. It can happen again.
Edit - and for the record, the abundance does vanish in a depression scenario. Factories shut down, productivity collapses. The world will literally extract, refine, process, and build less of everything. You can’t build a fleet of yachts without a functioning economy.
The Roaring Twenties (1920s) was a time of wild economic growth and insane deregulation. Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression by dismantling the government’s ability to regulate commerce and by raising tariffs to an insane level. America enjoyed a brief Gilded Age for the wealthy that caused a global economic collapse.
The reason Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have to operate as two separate entities is because of the Glass-Steagal act, enacted in response to the Great Depression, which split up commercial and investment banking to stop them from making the same mistakes again.
Like almost every other economic downturn, the Great Depression was caused in large part by laissez faire capitalism. Unregulated banks were gambling with too much of their customer’s money by making extremely risky investments in the stock market and agriculture (in 2008 it would be risky investments in sub-prime mortgages).
The tariffs were temporarily successful at isolating and enforcing american industry (note that the domestic industry was still strong enough to benefit, unlike now). But the Banks’ speculation bubble collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and since commercial and investment banking were still intertwined, it wasn’t just people losing the vaue of their stock portfolios - the banks were gambling with the money in their customers’ savings accounts.
Once people realize that the bank doesn’t have the funds to cover all of its accounts, that starts a run on the banks. Without the FDIC to insure your savings, when your bank goes bankrupt, you go bankrupt. The Great Depression begins in full.
Those same tarrifs prevent any relief or recovery from overseas. US citizens couldn’t afford to live. They couldn’t afford to buy domestic goods made down the street or heavily tariffed imports. Even when tariffs were pulled back it took time for supply chains to be rebuilt.
Reciprocal tariffs from overseas craters international demand for US goods, and suddenly US citizens couldn’t afford US products either. No customers, no money. Factories begin to close with no available replacements in the supply chain.
Domestic agriculture and industry collapsed, at a time when there was (intentionally) very little trade with other nations. Americans suffer, starve, and die. Tension builds, eviction standoffs begin, and homeless populations assemble by the thousands in “Hoovervilles” - shanty towns that looked very similar to the living conditions in Gaza pre October 7th.
Without constant planting, irrigation, and harvest, and with the long-term damage done by unregulated agriculture, Middle America becomes the Dust Bowl. It takes less than 5 years for the landscape to transform, and dust storms hit Washington DC in 1935.
90 years ago. 1935. You probably know someone that old. There are about a million Americans alive today who were born at a time when over a million Americans were homeless, many living in refugee camps in the new American Desert. There were cars, and airplanes, and CRT TV’s, and American children starving by the tens of thousands.
All of it started because a Republican President let corporations gamble recklessly without oversight while “protecting” American industry with extreme tariffs that cut the nation off completely from the global economic network.
What you did or how evil you are can only be determined by due process.
Yes. Without due process for everyone, no American is ‘innocent until proven guilty’. You are guilty until they decide otherwise.
Trump dismantles regulatory and social support agencies and enacts tariffs on a level we haven’t seen since Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression
The collapse is going to be the democrats fault
Keep on keepin’ on my friend
Edit - whoosh? You’re saying it’ll be blamed on the democrats I think? Either way I don’t think it’ll be that easy this time. They fucked up too much stuff too fast, all while obviously in complete control. ‘Oft evil will shall evil mar’ and all that.
As terrible as this is and will be, I have hope we can change a lot of minds. Social security started from the ashes of the great depression. It can be done again.
1920’s 2: electric boogaloo. Good luck everyone. Wish it didn’t have to be this way. Do what you can to prepare your families and your communities, because this is going to hurt.
If we get the chance in the 1930s, let’s make sure we pull an FDR and not a Hitler, please?
My experience says that I don’t have the money to pay for everyone who won’t be able to pay me back. So I’ll pay for the things I need and use, and let everyone else do the same.
You quite literally pay for everyone when you pay private health insurance anyway. The math works out that either you are unfortunate enough to need care and everyone else pays for you, or you don’t need extensive care and you pay for people that need it more. This is the same for privately funded or publicly funded healthcare.
The difference is that under the private healthcare system you also pay a whole bunch of salesmen, managers, investors, and executives, who can choose to delay or deny your care based on their professional medical opinion parasitic whim. Oh, and you also pay into all the super PACs and marketing agencies that reinforce the myth that the system is currently working for anyone.
The move, the department has said, is expected to save $1.8 billion from the agency’s $1.7 trillion annual budget — about one-tenth of 1%.
This story has been corrected to show the savings is about one-tenth of 1%, not about 1%.
Good stuff AP, fixing their mistake and lampshading the idea that this has anything to do with budget.
Dismantling the Department of Health for a savings of ~0.1% will surely help all of the people suffering in debt or without treatment from the American healthcare system.
If you’re a federal worker, please, do your best to force them to walk you out the door. Work together. If we get real lucky and things turn around, many of you will have one hell of a class action lawsuit on your hands. Talk to lawyers. Sue for wrongful termination, discrimination, etc.
Everyone else, but especially healthcare workers - talk to your unions and associations! If you don’t have one, join or start one! Show up to the meetings! Doctors, nurses, aides, many of you are already organized around your shared interests. Take advantage of that.
The system was broken from the start but it took a beating during the pandemic. Many of you have seen how things have gotten worse than they were.
With leadership like this, it’s only downhill. Less staff and support. More desperate, angry, or misinformed patients. ICE agents on the unit, police interrogating miscarriage survivors and OBGYN staff, medication and supply shortages even if we don’t see a second pandemic.
Talk to each other, talk to your reps and your leaders and your politicians. Stay safe and stay strong.
Yeah, I understand the possibility that a comment like that just isn’t worth responding to. Apathy is such a ubiquituous kneejerk response that it’s basically the fediverse’s equivalent of youtube’s “First!!” comments.
But we need more productive discourse, and sometimes that requires addressing all the potentially cynical readers out there who will just read the headline, see the apathy in these comments, and continue on with their doomscroll without a moment’s thought
It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.
Everybody paying attention is already aware of these things.
They haven’t been paying attention and no, they’re not already aware. Not everyone in the nation is on the same page. Clearly.
I understand why you’re trying to find reasons to be upset, and simplify the situation. But what are you actually trying to find here? What are you contributing?
What did MLK’s “I have a dream” speech accomplish? What did Sophia Scholl’s leaflets accomplish? What are you accomplishing, right here, right now, with this comment?
I am by no means elevating the senator’s speech to that level of historical importance. But the point stands. It’s an ideological war. It has to be fought with ideas. There is no other way.
To fight fascism is to fight especially when it feels like it accomplishes nothing. To fight an ideological war is not just to fight against your enemy - it is to fight for the hearts and minds of your friends.
I think it’s important that we start filling the fediverse and the world with more productive discussion. It feels like every single post and thread around here is completely hijacked by the “centrist/leftist/third party voters” conversation.
The first comments you see on every news article aren’t even about the article, it’s unrelated complaints against the presumed opinions of other people who may or may not have voted, some of whom may have been bots or internationals or children.
It’s wildly counterproductive. We need to move forward and really push for solidarity and meaningful solutions. We can’t stop fascism by fighting each other.
He talked for a little over a day.
There’a a reason there was a 24 hour record to be broken in the first place. Standing and delivering a speech for 25 hours straight is a genuinely incredible physical and mental feat.
The talking is to hold up the Senate, give voices to seniors worried about losing social security, and to draw more attention to the absolutely broken state of our government.
It’s an ideological war. Most of it will look like talking until the talking pushes people to start acting. You can’t just skip ahead to the revolution and push the “riot” button, you have to convince people to act.
Government doesn’t issue the ID for free, and needs to send it to a valid address. It’s nothing more than an attempt to stop voters from voting. If they actually cared about preserving democracy, they would make the ID’s free and easily accessible before requiring them to vote.
The more important issue is that it’s not an issue. There are no indications that non-citizens or identity thieves have had any impact on federal elections. Voter fraud is simply not a problem, so new laws to stop voter fraud really only exist to stop voters.
Seems like a formatting thing, thanks. I’ll stick to just inline hyperlinks instead of footnotes I think