Happy Holidays from President Donald J Trump!

You’re a mean one, Mr Grinch   How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Awww, it’s too bad that you’re such a total loser, but don’t feel bad, you won’t be going home empty handed. You’ll be leaving today with this copy of our home game! And yea, I mean that all of you are actually going to be able to play this game right along with us at home!

It’s official. President Bone Spurs latest round of punitive 15% tariffs took effect at midnight last night. Soup’s on, and guess what? You’re in the pot. And as the New York Times is reporting, with this round of tariffs, the Trump administration has broken with decades of previous standing in how a trade war is fought when it comes to consumers.

The way that most trade wars go, tariffs that the government imposes are called indirect tariffs, meaning that while consumers may ultimately see the effect, they don’t see the underlying cause. Tariffs are normally levied against things like steel and aluminum, a cost that the manufacturers see, and then pass on to the consumer. The price of your car itself didn’t go up, the cost of the aluminum used to make it went up.

But not this time. If there’s one thing that everybody knows by now, it’s that subtle is not in Emperor Numbus Nuttus’ repertoire. Hell, this guy wakes up every morning with a ed foam ball over his nose. In this round, El Presidente Pendejo has placed the tariffs directly on consumer goods, the finished products that retailers unload from the truck and place directly on the shelves. These tariffs are on things like clothing, shoes, household items and consumer electronics.

With one swift stroke of his Sharpie (safety catch on so he doesn’t hurt himself,) Trump has permanently laid to waste his shell game of saying that “U.S. consumers don’t pay tariffs, China pays tariffs.” He did this by removing the “middleman” manufacturer, who raised the prices to the retailer, who then passed them on to the consumer. Since it was the manufacturer who bore the cost, His Lowness could hide the original sin. But this time, it’s the retailers directly who will be paying those tariffs and passing the cost on to consumers, and you can bet your ass that they’ll be happy to tell their customers why the cost of their toys just went up.

See, here’s the McGuffin. These new tariffs went into effect at 12:01 on Sunday morning. Any plane or freighter that departed China after that time is subject to the new tariffs. The Chinese don’t celebrate Labor Day, hell, they don’t even celebrate weekends! Those ships left last night, right on schedule, stuffed full of goodies for American consumers. And here’s the yang to that yin. Let’s just say that The $1 Store Caligula decides tomorrow to call the whole thing off, and signs an order dropping the latest round of tariffs. It doesn’t matter! Any of the ships that left yesterday, or leave today and tomorrow are still subject to the tariffs that were in force when they left the port of origin!

Talk about the ultimate holiday shopping madness. Let’s play a scenario where Trjumpledork sees the error in his ways, and cancels the tariffs on, say Wednesday. That still leaves 4 days of full freighters and cargo planes worth of shit coming in at prices that will be 15% higher. Consumers are no dummies, and they understand cause and effect. If prices on popular holiday items go up by 15% before Black Friday, the stores will be empty echo chambers, with buyers waiting for the higher priced tariff goods to sell before they go shopping. But if nobody is shopping, those higher priced goods are not going to move off of the shelves. Meaning that retailers are either going to have to eat the cost of the tariffs, or watch their make-or-break holiday season go down the tubes.

The whole linchpin to this entire meshuggas may come as early as tomorrow. The stock market doesn’t live in a vacuum, they know that these tariffs are there, and in effect. If stocks drop at the opening bell tomorrow like Trump’s pants when a porn star walks into the room, Houston, we have a problem. A major market downturn on the implementation of these new tariffs will only make the talk of a Trump Recession into tortured howls. And if that happens, then tariffs or no tariffs, American consumers may well decide to just sit this holiday season out, with all that implies.

Ah, remember the good old days, when the worst thing you had to worry about was whether or not you’d have a white Christmas? Well, thanks to the sly artful deal machinations of The Pampers President, now you can spend all of your time stressing over whether or not the kids will be satisfied with the $0.99 Store trinkets you put under the tree. Merry Christmas!