While on my local travels this weekend, I listened to a This American Life episode y’all might enjoy. It’s called “Museum of Now,” and it reviewed some “artifacts and exhibits” from the moment we’re currently living through.
The idea behind the episode is that so much is happening so fast that it’s hard to take it all in (by design). So, TAM plucked a few examples out of the pile of Horrors to examine in greater detail.
I thought the segment on U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes was particularly engrossing. I’d read about the judge’s defenestration of hapless DOJ lawyer and UVA alum Jason Lynch, whom the DOJ sent to court to defend Trump’s illegal EO ban on trans servicemembers. But TAM hired actors to read the transcript, and that made it absolutely riveting.
Also, Joe Biden appointed Judge Reyes. Good pick, Biden!
Open thread.
Loveofcoffee
I think historians are going to have a difficult time just sorting everthing out- so much of these horrors don’t relate to each other. I still can’t believe it is less than 4 months!
New Deal democrat
A couple of points about the continued market meltdown.
First, while it is Big Schadenfreude to see billionaires crying about the leopards eating their faces, with crashes like this there is the danger of it turning into a 2008-style liquidity and solvency crisis.
It is virtually certain that there are some market players who have bought stocks or commodities on margin, and are getting margin calls now. If they can’t pony up the money, their positions get liquidated, exacerbating the downturn. And even if they can pony up the money, they usually have to sell their “winners,” e.g., Treasury bonds, to cover their “losers.” Which only adds to the pressure on the remaining “winners” and adds to the downward pressure on the “losers.”
If a big bank, insurer, or economically important company gets a call like this, it could drive them into bankruptcy. And that is not a good thing at all for all of the innocent bystanders in the economy. So cross your fingers that this doesn’t happen.
—-
Secondly, the Roberts Court has unintentionally handed potential plaintiffs who might sue Trump over these tariffs a very powerful argument in the shape of the “Major Questions Doctrine.” The gist of this doctrine is that if Congress wanted to cede a major power to some executive agency, it has to do so explicitly and not implicitly.
In this case the Congress ceded a limited power to the President to apply “emergency” tariffs. Nowhere did Congress explicitly grant the Executive the power to completely remake the global trading system, especially where the underlying problem of trade deficits has been a chronic one for decades.
If this meltdown spreads far enough and does enough damage, even the Roberts Court might decide to jettison the “Unitary Executive Doctrine” it has reserved for GOP Presidents, and instead apply the “Major Questions Doctrine” as above, previously reserved only for Democratic Presidents.
Old Man Shadow
I don’t like living in interesting times.
I miss boring.
Hoodie
@New Deal democrat: A conservative legal group (including the infamous Leonard Leo) has already filed a suit on those grounds. Conservative legal doctrine is mostly a mess of ad hoc rationalizations. As you point out, “unitary executive” kind of clashes with things like “major questions” and “nondelegation.” In this case, however, it might be useful, especially with those plaintiffs.
narya
I listen to too many legal podcasts. Someone skeeted “Humphrey’s Executor not yet executed” and I laughed because I knew to what it was referring. OTOH, I’ll take what laughs I can get today. I am feeling ever more fortunate that I got some consulting work this year; now we will see if I actually get my first SocSec payment this month.
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: My favorite example of that: The tariffs are justified both with a claim that exchange rate shifts will result in no rise in prices, AND with a silly equation that explicitly assumes a rise in prices. Does either make sense? No, but they also cannot be true at the same time.
Betty Cracker
@New Deal democrat: So you’re saying I shouldn’t be rooting for a T$LA margin call? Damn. :(
Jeffg166
@Old Man Shadow:
Tough.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: I’m with you. Rooting for Musk to get a margin call and being forced to sell his overpriced stock. Does anyone among the jackaltariat know how low it has to go for this to happen?
ETA I’m not worried about a “2008-style liquidity and solvency crisis.” Even if the IRA melts down I can get by on our Social Security payments, which are safe. Ha!!
(Looks around the house; I think we have a couple curtain rods here.)
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
You talk about who might get a margin call, but who gives them?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Betty Cracker:
I believe Elon Musk has pledged TSLA stock to fund other projects. I look forward to seeing what happens.
Betty Cracker
Whiplash — the DOW is down 1000+ again.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: I think the margin call comes from the banks the stockholder borrowed money from for income based on the stock value as collateral. Once the collateral disappears when the market falls, the banks get their money back by forcing the stock to be sold.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Wheeee!!!
cintibud
@frosty: Life hack #22 – Use wire coat hangers instead of curtain rods! Plentiful, don’t have to take down existing curtains, easier to skewer sparrows with!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I would very much like to ask some of my neighbors if they’re happy now.
Urza
@Loveofcoffee: Less than 3 months
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Are you happy now?
Spanky
@frosty: Given the old saying that if you owe the bank $10,000, the bank owns you, but if you owe the bank a $trillion you own the bank, I wonder if they can be convinced not to make that call.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Relevant:
NotMax
Rapid unitary destruction.
Hoodie
@Matt McIrvin: Of course, the other one is that tariffs will raise massive revenue and cause American manufacturing to roar back. Neither is likely, I just wish they’d make up their minds.
YY_Sima Qian
Ughh… (gift link to WaPo article below):
Betty Cracker
A TikTok account folks who dig Emily Dickinson, enjoy arguing about the Oxford comma, etc., might enjoy: Elle Cordova.
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
He would have had to buy Tesla shares at their inflated values in order for that to happen. Presumably he’s had his shares since the beginning.
Now the people who bought Tesla stock on margin when it was up around $400, they’re probably gonna get margin calls.
Investopedia:
Buying on Margin: How It’s Done, Risks and Rewards
Margin Call: What It Is and How to Meet One With Examples
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: The nice black church ladies and the cringey Resist-Lib wine moms with their butterfly tattoos knew what was up.
Baud
Belafon
@lowtechcyclist: I’m not sure of the details, but I understood it was related to him using Tesla shares as collateral for Twitter, and that there was some level that the banks would call him on. But I definitely don’t know enough about how all of that works.
schrodingers_cat
From the dead morning thread:
The tariffs nonsense should not be seen in isolation. Trump is trying to destroy brand America and remake it in his own image. The people who blabber constantly about uniparty and heightening the contradictions, who are supposedly on our side but attack elected Ds far more than Rs have got their wish.
He hates trade and trade treaties. He hates post WWII American foreign policy. He hates immigrants. He hates capitalism. He wants to replace it
Tell me how is that different from the tankie wishlist? Another point of similarity is the use of Russian talking points to describe the US economy.
I have heard lefties railing about NAFTA in particular and trade pacts in general since the day I landed in the US over 30 years ago.
One point of difference:
He wants to replace it with colonial mercantilist economy like Britain had in the Victorian era and tankies want to replace the current order with communism or something something Sweden.
Hoodie
@lowtechcyclist: Musk’s potential problem is LTV covenants on his loans to acquire Twitter, which are secured by TSLA stock.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: That came with a cute dog commercial, so I’m happier than I was. I’m going to zumba in a few minutes. That usually makes me happier
Fair Economist
@lowtechcyclist: Eloon had to borrow against his Tesla shares to buy Twitter. But Tesla has been down to something like 112 since then so whatever margin calls he might face are well below 170.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He is trying to destroy the US as we know it.
Our economy
Our scientific prowess
Our Constitution
Our institutions
Our government
TS
@Hoodie:
One reason the manufacturing will not roar back is uncertainty. No-one knows what trump will do next, so a new factory in the US could be upstaged by one in Mexico – all that would take is trump removing the tariffs. A rumour of the latter sent the markets rising for 10 minutes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: I just followed her. You will pry the Oxford comma from my cold, dead hands. Given the way my retirement account is vanishing, that will be sooner than I’d hoped
Steve LaBonne
Well, capital is getting really antsy. Guess we’re going to test some leftist ideas about who has the real power in capitalist society. As I recall those analyses didn’t apply very well in Germany despite some half-hearted attempts to make them fit the phenomena.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s probably inevitable. The question is, what will the new USA look like.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Like Russia. That’s Putin’s goal. Whether he will be successful IDK.
The moment Dem electeds were successful in pushing Biden out, the probability of Putin’s success went up dramatically.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Elle Cordova is great. I first saw her “fonts hanging out.” She has another on the “retirement” of Cortana. Classic.
Steve LaBonne
@TS: If manufacturing ever does roar back it will employ a lot of robots and very few MAGAs.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t know either.
Urza
@schrodingers_cat: Don’t forget rewriting history already.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@schrodingers_cat: yes, that is Trump’s ideal (“like Russia”). I am an optimist, I think that will not happen. Meanwhile there will be a lot of damage.
schrodingers_cat
@Urza: That’s why he is attacking universities and freedom of speech.
Urza
@Steve LaBonne: They just proved they want to run government with AI and don’t care if AI is wrong while doing it. Almost no one seems to get the coming job apocalypse which will be far worse with the wrong people in power and no UBI or tax on the work of automotons.
schrodingers_cat
@Mr. Bemused Senior: A lot depends on white people, they are the majority and the default demographic and the base of the Republican party and a majority of the tankie left too.
YY_Sima Qian
All of the commodities are down sharply (oil, copper, etc.). So the “Market” is expecting a global recession, rather than a manufacturing renaissance anywhere. That might change when government stimuli start to be rolled out around the world. Beijing has already stated that intention, having kept most of its powder dry in the past could have years, for exactly this scenario.
Steve LaBonne
@schrodingers_cat: I would not recommend having much confidence in us.
Anyway
@YY_Sima Qian:
And they say government works slowly. The destruction is happening at a dizzying pace. It’s so asymmetric the way the two parties work. It sometimes takes Ds almost the whole term to get good bills written and passed and Rs destroy it all within months …
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
Elle Cordova is also in YouTube for folks who are not on TikTok. She’s great.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve LaBonne: We don’t need a majority, a shift of a couple of percentage points will cause a seismic shift in our politics
Each white person can do outreach to one of their R or tankie bretheren
Belafon
@Anyway: It’s easier to destroy than create.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m an AP style gal, but we can still be friends. ;-)
YY_Sima Qian
@Anyway: I am still surprised by the lack of resistance from the federal bureaucracy, after a Dem term, when Trump 47 is still filling out his slate of political appointees.
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: What an impressive performance! He makes the black swan dive look effortless.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
You’ll enjoy “Elle Cordova” much better in her YouTube musical partnership with virtuoso guitarist / vocal accompaniest Toni Lindgreen. They do covers of a variety of tunes that are better than the originals.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: Joe Wiesenthal’s latest, very modest rate relief at a time of extraordinary tumult suggests that the normal “flight to safety” of Treasury notes is not materializing quite to the expected level (screen caps through the link):
@TS: Tracy Alloway made this point explicitly (again, screen cap through the link):
jonas
I read somewhere that it has a ways to go before Musk starts getting margin calls. But those lines of credit are probably going to start drying up (or getting *really* expensive) as banks shift their risk assessments and TSLA continues to decline, even if there’s no literal margin call. Then he’s going to have to start selling actual shares to maintain his oligarchic standing and that’s not going to help things either.
jonas
@Anyway: You can accomplish/destroy a lot when you don’t care about rules, laws, etc.
Hoodie
@YY_Sima Qian: Makes sense. Who are going to be the consumers of all these domestically-produced goods? The Chinese don’t need it and the EU can buy from other places. You’re making American consumers poorer. I don’t see how you square the circle if you’re declaring a trade war on the entire planet. The point of trade war moves is to attack specific bad actors to get them back into line with general agreements on trade. This is just reality-denying Stalinist economic thinking.
YY_Sima Qian
Screen cap of Trump’s tweet through the link:
The problem is, once imports from the PRC have been tariffed at 100%, increasing that to 150% does not meaningfully change anything, rapidly diminishing returns. However, expect more stock market “turbulence” tomorrow.
PRC manufactured goods will flow through 3rd countries w/ relatively lower tariff rates by way of transshipment, relabeling or final assembly, or MAGA has to significantly raise tariff on everyone & further isolate the US, whose economy will probably seize up from the “Shock Therapy” of the US withdrawing from global trade & supply chains cold turkey.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: If you thought that you had robust civil service and union contract protections, and then it turns out that some rando called Big Balls can just waltz in and fire you at a whim, you’d be pretty thoroughly demoralized. Which was openly the Project 2025 / Russell Vought plan all along.
NotMax
@YY_Sima Qian
Extortion R Us.
//
YY_Sima Qian
@Steve LaBonne: True.
Hoodie
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s statements like that that do make you wonder if he really believes that China pays the tariff, like it’s some sort of fine.
YY_Sima Qian
@NotMax: Xi is going to call Trump’s bluff.
Bupalos
@lowtechcyclist: Borrowing against the stock creates the margin here, It’s the margin between the value of the asset and your owed balance. so it’s a question of what the stock was at when he took the loan on the stock.
YY_Sima Qian
@Hoodie: Oh, he believes it, egged on by Navarro. & now Trump has taken to quoting Gordon G. Chang (who has predicted 25 of the last 0 PRC economic melt downs since 2001).
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Betty Cracker: Sorry, but given that money may be riding on things like the Oxford comma in my profession, I’ve got to say: given a choice between ugly but clear, or elegant but ambiguous, I’ll go for clarity every single time. I have seen the value of the Oxford comma, and I will not bend to pressure to abandon it.
Steve LaBonne
@Hoodie: Profound ignorance and abject stupidity are always the default explanations of anything Trump does or says.
Bupalos
@TS: The other reason is we simply don’t have the labor available, nor would many of the products in question be viable within our economy if they were produced at higher labor rates.
Trump does not really care about any of this. He lives in the moment, within and through his own emotional states, and he is having the best time of his life.
I think one of the big mistakes that we constantly make is speaking as if Trump hates things or wants things or has concrete long-term goals. I think he’s probably a little shocked at how fantastic this is all going. Maybe a little scared, but thrilled-scared, like riding an awesome roller coaster.
Bupalos
@Steve LaBonne: If only.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@YY_Sima Qian: That’s because you’ve likely never stared a bureaucratic blitzkrieg in the face like a lot of Federal workers are now doing. Musk’s script-kiddie Schutzstaffel (a nauseatingly-appropriate term I stumbled across on Bluesky, I think) are deliberately creating anxiety and fear that the bureaucrats you’re asking to resist may lose their jobs and livelihoods for any reason or no reason at all, on zero days’ notice, and that any step that looks the slightest bit like defiance of the New Order will put them on the chopping block, and looking for work in an economy that’s teetering on the edge of the Second Great Depression.
They’re being attacked by terrorists, and the attacks are working.
Betty Cracker
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: AP requires the use of Oxford commas when needed for clarity.
I frequently write in Chicago and follow publication style guides that require an Oxford comma, but AP is my default because I’ve used it the most professionally. I’d never try to convert an Oxfordist. The religion of others is none of my concern as long as they leave me be too. ;-)
YY_Sima Qian
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Yep, you are right. Especially given the complete disregard for laws & courts on the part of MAGA, which is also reminiscent of Fascists & Nazis.
YY_Sima Qian
Sure to end well…
AM in NC
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: 100% with you on this. Oxford comma all the way.
RevRick
@schrodingers_cat: As has been pointed out over at LGM, Trump is stupid, evil, and mentally ill. To ascribe a rational imperative to his actions doesn’t work.
He imposed tariffs, because he really believes that they are some sort of magical cure-all. That’s his stupidity. Would he also use the resulting chaos to find a way to make money? Yes. That’s his evil. Does he care about what happens to anybody else? No. That’s his mental illness.
His grand plan is nuts, but he’s convinced he knows better than anyone else so he will stick with it, even if it leaves utter ruin in its wake.
Dorothy A. Winsor
It’s snowing here in NW Chicagoland
RevRick
@Hoodie: He really does believe this nonsense, because he’s that stupid. *
*Stupidity is holding a belief system impervious to contradictory evidence
Steve LaBonne
@RevRick: And we have to bellow from the rooftops at every opportunity that Republicans could stop the carnage, right now today, if they so choose.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Obligatory?
:)
MagdaInBlack
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Right this second the sun is shining 12(?) miles SE of you. I’ll give it a few tho..
….and now we have a few wee flakes in Arlington Heights..
Spring in Illinois =-)
Bupalos
Thanks for the recommendation. That was interesting.
I feel like she’s either missing the real point though, or else doesn’t want the point to become too openly understood? I think it’s pretty clear there is a method in so loudly not preparing or offering any kind of defense or providing any kind of answer. It’s a kind of claim. “We don’t have to defend this. We don’t have to have evidence. This just is. Say what you want about it and we’ll move on the next stage.” This was a soft and passive-aggressive kind of defiance of the judiciary. One that is clearly likely to become more active-aggressive.
...now I try to be amused
@schrodingers_cat:
Is Trump’s desired end state autarky? I haven’t seen the word used in the current discourse, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
schrodingers_cat
@RevRick: What evidence do you have of his mental illness? He is sane, he understands cause and effect. Just because you don’t agree with what he does that doesn’t make him mentally ill.
Juju
@Hoodie: The president who graduated from Wharton with a degree in economics does not know what a tariff is or how a tariff actually works. He is that stupid.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: I bet Vance’s mother-in-law is very proud.
cain
@YY_Sima Qian:
Someone was speculating China tariffing services which would create a huge problem for tech companies.
UncleEbeneezer
@Old Man Shadow: Well at least the President isn’t “old”…let me start again…
Juju
@schrodingers_cat: From my personal experience with my mother’s dementia, my guess is he’s in earlyish dementia. When my mother first started showing signs, she would forget and remember things and there was no rhyme or reason as to what she remembered then forgot and then remembered again. When Trump seems to honestly not remember things that are documented as things he said, that is an example of signs of dementia. The tiredness he seems to show and letting people do all the work for him is another sign. He also has, from time to time had a blank bewildered look. He is what he has always been at his core, and that will not change, those features will become more prominent. I know it’s just my opinion, but other people who have dealt with dementia also seem to recognize the signs, which I did not recognize in my mother until it was obvious.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: Well LG&M is famous for their remote diagnoses (like foot Parkinsons)…
It’s rather ironic considering Campos’ hobby horse about the dangers of people making ridiculous health assumptions/judgements based on scant data like BMI.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: Paul Campos is also famous for coining the term “Arianna Grande Voters” to descibe voters who know no more about politics than he knows about Arianna Grande. Of course all that means is a low-information voter, but some people are still impressed by the novel term.
The irony is that Arianna Grande has sponsored very successful voter registration drives, and is way better known than Paul Campos ever will be.
prostratedragon
@…now I try to be amused:
A representation of his desired end state
Elizabelle
@Juju: Good post.
One problem with Trump: he is a bullshitter. Talks just to talk and grab the spotlight.
So, another reason he may not remember what he said from day to day, or even hour to hour.
A lot of things not right with that man.
Elizabelle
@…now I try to be amused:
Yes. I think it is.
The word autarky should be trending on merriam-webster.com in the coming days, or next week.
Discussion of autarky in wiki’s Economics of Fascism.
Although. Le sigh. I think most people cannot define Fascism either. And maybe not Economics …
RevRick
@schrodingers_cat: He is a God-damned sociopath who doesn’t care one whit about other people’s suffering. He’s infamous for being willing to screw over people whenever he gets a chance. Morality means nothing to him.
Bupalos
@Elizabelle: What should be trending is negative narcissitic supply. Trump doesn’t really have “desired end states” I don’t think.
JoyceH
Trump is talking in the Oval. I was doing some stuff away from the tv so listened to a lot more of him that I wanted to. Got it muted now, but I’m back in the recliner and getting increasingly irked by that tacky gold shit they stuck on the front of the fireplace surround. Someone please tell me that’s glued on and they didn’t drill holes in the marble. Grrr. I hate him so much.
Juju
@Elizabelle: Trump also has a family history with dementia. I worry about that for my family because my mother and one of her sisters have been diagnosed with dementia. The thing that actually surprises me about Trump is that funding and research has been cut in Alzheimer’s and dementia along with all of those other cuts to funding and research. I don’t know if it’s a lack of empathy, which would not be surprising, or if it’s part of his non participation in anything but ceremonial duties he deems worthy.
Juju
@JoyceH: I was thinking Alien Tape.
Elizabelle
@Juju: re dementia/Alzheimer’s research funding: (A) Trump has no empathy and (B) he very well may have dementia, in which case he is likely also in denial. Think of how argumentative some of our elderly relatives can be. (C) Trump is lazy as fuck, and very corrupt as well.
The time and expertise we are losing for finding solutions and cures to disease and environment. Tragic. You cannot ever make that time up.
Thank dog for international research. But we should be in there, too.
Betty Cracker
@RevRick: Yep. It’s pretty obvious that Trump is a walking collection of untreated personality disorders. Hundreds of mental health professionals signed an open letter to that effect that was published in the NYT before he was elected the first time, and he…hasn’t improved in the intervening years.
JoyceH
@Juju: When we get a real president back in the Oval Office, what are the odds that someone will tug at that dumb curlicue and discover it’s gold-painted plastic?
Hey, someone who knows how should do an image search and find out where the Trump Curlicue is listed and how much it costs. Bet you can find it on Amazon.
wombat probability cloud
@Betty Cracker: Thanks, fun. And, hands off! my Oxford comma.
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: No, he used his overvalued Tesla stock as collateral to get loans to buy twitter. He did not liquidate his Tesla stock to get cash to purchase. He borrowed by pledging an asset. It that asset drops below a certain value, then the banks need more money. He can sell stock or come up with the cash some other way. He thought Twitter would be profitable enough to pay for its own purchase under his “smarter” management. A lot of people think that when they pay too much for a company. Not only was he stupid, the banks were too. Maybe they wanted the Tesla stock, and didn’t realize it was overvalued too.
Also he realized he had offered too much. That is why he tried to back out, but couldn’t find a way. It may also be why he resorted to cutting. Cheapest way to lose option left to him. Also might be why he is trying to raid the government for more money/cheat. It’s possible the twitter deal could bring down his whole fortune because they are all tied together? Depends on how he financed all the others. The twitter /Tesla financing was reported but not every detail we would need to know to be sure.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: the “conservatives “ have hated all the same things for much much longer. All my life and I am old. Those are not traditional liberal views, except for a certain tendency to dislike “capitalism” or at least corporations.
In fact I am not sure those people you describe as lefties really are, no matter what they say. But maybe I am just dismissing a group that is pretty absent from my region. And the few there are, are very uninfluential. I know plenty of liberals. They tend towards civil rights/golden rule and nature ecology lovers.