Today, the US Chamber of Commerce, who actively worked to get Donald Trump elected in 2016, turned on him after he did EXACTLY what he said he was going to do – start a trade war.  So many business people, including the Chamber, hated Hillary Clinton so much that they were willing to roll the bones on Trump, and EVERYONE is losing.  His erratic behavior, shooting from the hip, and idiotic neocon economic and defense policy has turned our world on its ear.  When it started hitting Chamber members in the wallet, they woke up.

The business community’s support of Trump was idiotic, and everyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention knew that.  But since most business people watch Trump News Network, they believed his bullshit and have now followed him right over the cliff without a second thought; that is, until they hit the ground.

The result is that the stock market is now in negative territory FOR THE YEAR, manufacturers are fleeing the US for foreign shores (taking the jobs with them), debt to GDP has now exceeded our debt level at the end of WWII, the dollar is being displaced by the Renminbi for global trading, Trump has pissed off all of our trading partners and handed our export markets over to both former allies and competitors, and all this has been done while french kissing Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un to our political and economic disadvantage.

I’m personally staggered by how much damage to our country one lunatic can do.  When we finally rid ourselves of this infestation, (and have cleaned out Congress) we’ll have to develop an entire set of new statutes that will prevent this kind of tragedy from ever happening again.  More on that at a future date.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

UPDATE: The Cato Institute, founded and funded by the Koch Brothers, is now opposing Trump’s trade wars, calling them “incoherent, angry and misguided”.  Cato is well known for its libertarian approach to policy and politics, and the Kochs often use it as a blunt force weapon to attack everything from regulations to climate change.  If you’re not familiar with how global trade works, this is actually a pretty good primer; because of that, it’s a very effective argument against the irrationality of Trump’s trade policies tweets.  This article explains the idiocy and inconsistency of Trump’s America First policy where he and his moronic trade staff have fabricated policy based on the “I win, you lose” myth of trade.  No actual trade expert promotes this zero sum game.  Win-win is the only policy that leads to economic growth and stability.

Since the beginning of this dumpster fire, I’ve been amazed how Trump’s cabinet and advisors have sold their souls for their titles.  Some, like Betsy DeVos, you would expect to be incompetent.  But others, like billionaire Wilbur Ross, are shocking.  Ross is well known in business circles as a smart turn-around guy and shrewd businessman.  As Commerce Secretary, he has backed Trump’s idiocy, defending his trade war even to rejecting a market crash as enough reason to stop it.  These statements can only communicate one of two things about Ross:  Either he is a dumbass and just been lucky in business all these years, or he’s pandering to Trump for some unknown reason (which could be some legal entanglement in one of his “deals”).  I’ll take Door Number Two, Alex.

In a Commerce Department filing, General Motors said that if the new Trump tariffs take effect, the company will have to scale back operations and cut US jobs to survive. Whatever idiot is filling Trump’s orange head full of tariff bullshit needs to be run out of DC.  I’m not sure how much more “winning” we can stand.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

No one, except for Trump and his billionaire Commerce Secretary, believe trade wars are a good idea.  For those in business, trade wars are often catastrophic.  Cue Harley Davidson, the largest US manufacturer of motorcycles, who just announced that THEY ARE MOVING MANUFACTURING OUT OF THE US due to Trump’s import tariffs on steel and Europe’s retaliatory tariffs against American motorcycles..  The tariffs are adding an additional cost of $2,200 PER MOTORCYCLE, or about $100 million per year.  This is why trade wars are stupid.

In general, companies are rational (when it comes to math, anyway).  If an outside force adds a cost, companies will look to immediately neutralize that cost.  The problem with motorcycles, as in other manufacturing, is that net margins are relatively thin.  Adding $2,200 in cost to a motorcycle puts the price of that motorcycle outside of the ability of many customers to buy, and Harley can’t afford to absorb.  Result?  Trump is accomplishing precisely the opposite of his stated goal of increasing manufacturing jobs in the US.  His stupidity is destroying jobs by the thousands.

And the invertebrates in Congress just lie there, doing nothing.

Article I, Sec. 8 – 

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

The Founders established a balance of power that limited the power of the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial branches.  Until gerrymandering, the terminal cancer on democracy, the system worked well.  Now, the legislative branch is fossilized, full of ignorant, corrupt morons who see their only job as keeping their job.  In the House, the ruling party picks its constituents.  In the Senate, protections of the minority have been stripped away.  The resulting political Frankenstein is a Congress that literally does nothing, including setting international trade policy and war-making.  Because of this abrogation of constitutional authority, our entire governmental stability now depends on the character and basic decency of the person sitting in the Oval Office.

And then came Trump.  Because our system of government depends completely on the basic decency of the person occupying the office of president, as well as an adherence to over two centuries of tradition and custom, we’re not prepared to counter the actions of a president completely devoid of character and who is corrupt to the core. Combine that corruption with the abrogation of congressional authority, we are now completely exposed to the catastrophe that we witnessing today.  The President of the United States, unchecked by offsetting institutions, is actively undermining longstanding alliances, destroying trade relations among allies, and advocating alliance with our biggest enemy, Russia.

And ALL of these actions by Trump and his enablers are based on lies.  Our allies are NOT trading unfairly.  The markets among the major economic powers are open and free.  All trade agreements, at least before the regime of Cheeto Jesus, were openly negotiated.  Trump is poking our longstanding allies in the eye for no other reason than propping up the support of his ignorant, mouth-breathing, bigoted base.

If our members of Congress don’t stand up on their hind legs and stop this lunatic, he’s likely do set off a global trade war…FOR NO REASON.  Call your senator and congressman and tell them to stop screwing around and do their goddam job.  Our democracy depends on it.