Yes, another bank of the Rubicon was crossed today. We’re going to have to build an airport and some hotels next to the Rubicon, it’s gotten so busy. We find ourselves in a place today, August 1, 2025, that America has never been before. In Dayes Of Olde, if a president had lousy economic numbers, then he had lousy economic numbers. It was what it was. You lived with it. But that was before we got a narcissistic man baby in office, who has to live in a fantasy world of his own creation where everything is “puppies and rainbows” to quote Paul Krugman (who is a Nobel Prize winner. Ergo, it’s certain that Trump hates him for that on principal alone.) Krugman outlines how a country goes the way of Argentina or Venezuela and it starts out with lies like the ones that Trump is paving the way for by firing the woman at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for telling the truth about jobs creation.
So for now we’re not in a recession. Yet. But let’s look forward a month or two. Let’s assume that Jane Doe takes the job that Erika McEntarfer was just fired from at the Bureau of Labor Statistics today. And Jane Doe is an avid MAGA. Think of Alina Habba with a course in QuickBooks, if that, and a background as a dispensing optician or a veterinary assistant. Jane goes on to provide a jobs report for August, 2025, which is staggering. Let’s say 500,000 jobs just to start out with.
And then September is 1,000,000 new jobs, according to Jane, and it just keeps doubling and quadrupling until by Halloween, we realize that at the rate we’re going the Gross National Product should be on the moon and there should be zero unemployment and 401(K)s should be healthy as a horse, along with the rest of a booming stock market.
Except — wait. The actual number of people out of work does not match what is coming out of Washington, what with all these jobs being created right and left on paper, but no place else. Plus, the prices of groceries and gas has gone way up, credit card debt is soaring, the real estate market is frozen and the lies become too big for Trump to contain. Then what?
Then is when you get hyperinflation, 80% inflation, and economic meltdown. We took the first step today, which was Trump killing the messenger. He doesn’t care that his policies aren’t working. He doesn’t care that the stock market is jittery. He only cares about the appearance of things.
Trump is a form man. He has zero substance. He has zero depth. All he knows and all that he cares about is creating a persona of wealth, ability, knowledge and all the indicia of success. Image is all that matters to him.
But at some point image won’t cut it. The crops will be harvested, or they won’t. There will be jobs created, or there won’t. The tariffs will end up being a tax that consumers pay and not a big check written to the treasury. When that fraud finally blows up in Trump’s face, that will be some explosion.
For right now, Trump is in the talk the talk stage and nothing terrible has happened yet. But things are still unraveling enough for him to be paranoid and jittery. And it was in that mood today that he fired McEntarfer. And he can fire everybody at the BLS for that matter. Maybe he will. Maybe Jared Kushner will come out of retirement from politics and give Dad-in-Law a hand.
But at some point reality is going to win out over lies. The only question is: how bad does it have to get? Do we have to get to 80% hyperinflation? Maybe we do. Or maybe Trump is paving the way for a midterm wipeout in 2026 that will put both chambers of Congress back in Democratic hands and cripple the last two years of his *presidency.*
That is devoutly to be wished. And in point of fact, a lot of Republicans may be wishing that would take place more avidly than Democrats, because at least it would take them off the hook. Some Republicans feel that way, to be sure. But then there are the others, like Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Roger Marshall, Markwayne Mullin and others that we could name who are all too happy to have Trump stay in office forever and change the United States into a banana republic where he, and they, stay in office for life.
That’s not a statement you ever would have made prior to ten years ago, but it’s a statement you can certainly make now.
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so how does crypto currency fit into all this economic damage?
It enables the properly connected, (i.e. The Trumps) to pocket enormous profits out of the chaos.
“Let’s assume that Jane Doe takes the job that Erika McEntarfer was just fired from at the Bureau of Labor Statistics today. And Jane Doe is an avid MAGA.”
You’re making a BIG assumption that Drumpf will appoint any woman to the post. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if her being a woman played as big a part as her reporting true numbers that displeased His Orangeness.
Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Linda McMahon aren’t enough for you? /s