[POST] The Reckoning to Come

And payback will be a bitch

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Start with the most obvious: America is underwater as a global force for good. Osama bin Laden couldn’t pull that off but our current White House certainly can.

Notice how the nations that know us the best now like us the least.

What is it about GOP presidents this century (Bush, Trump) that they make our nation so deeply unpopular around the world — at least with our oldest and dearest friends? It’s like we really don’t want to have allies anymore.

Sense a pattern here?

Then toss in having the worst domestic approval ratings after 100 days — with Trump 2.0 “worsting” even Trump 1.0.

Why mention and why care? Trump is trying to re-jigger everything everywhere all at once in America’s decided favor. He will fail in most instances, with the payback rolling slowly back onto our shores in all manner of forms.

Of all the shocks to come, the one to watch for first will be the rippling effect of our trade de-coupling with China. It takes 30 days for cargo ships to cross the Pacific and hit our ports, and within two weeks, we’ll hit that 30-day mark since Trump started his tariff fight with Beijing. As a result, a lot of ships are not coming. Walmart and Target are already warning about empty shelves in the manner of the COVID pandemic. American manufacturers are letting their cargos sit in China because they can’t pay the tariffs, so production will grind to a halt for many who cannot find substitute suppliers or afford the switch anyway. The slowdown at the ports has already begun. That will translate into much less trucking, and so on and so forth.

On top of the government layoffs, now come the government contractor layoffs, and then the layoffs from all the research money that’s been cancelled — to include fewer researchers, fewer grad students, and university-system layoffs. Companies in general won’t hire and will hunker down. All of us non-billionaires will see our incomes put at risk or subtly diminished.

People won’t be able to sell their houses (lowest house sales since 2009) and then move to better prospects. A housing price crash is already teed up, thanks to climate change, the insurance issues, and Wall Street’s continuing shenanigans. Trump’s policies will only turbo-charge it.

Forget about the 4th of July — no fireworks. Toss in Halloween and Christmas too.

Forget about harvesting certain crops — insufficient migrant labor.

Wait for the construction crash as companies and developers stop building, in part because the labor is just not there.

Forget about selling bulk crops abroad to our biggest buyer — China, as it is already turning elsewhere as it aggressively cancels orders for US commodities across the board.

Every financial organization is downshifting their estimates for US economic growth and for global growth, with recession now seen as far more likely than not and some leading financial figures declaring it already here.

The vast majority of Americans believe a recession is inevitable, and are already behaving in anticipation of a lengthy and deep economic downturn.

Business and consumer sentiment has hit multi-decade lows, with tariff volatility causing financial market instability and reduced appetite for dollar assets, making it harder for the USG to float debt.

But most of all, we should all fear the planning paralysis afflicting vast swaths of our economy — from kitchen tables to executive boardrooms, leading everyone to pare back expenses and delay purchases.

Thrift stores are crammed; big box stores are not.

Americans are canceling vacations, and foreigners are canceling travel to the US. This is not a good time to be an American and traveling abroad.

Put it all together and we’re looking at Ford/Carter-like stagflation — or low growth with inflation. Amazingly, Trump — all on his own — has re-created many of the negative economic dynamics of the COVID pandemic — on purpose. First, he screws up the response and then he architects the sequel — absolutely amazing.

Is Trump the most consequential president in his first 100 days since FDR? Most definitely, but, while FDR’s consequences were a combination of good and bad and meh, Trump’s are virtually all negative. Even his shutting down of the border, as successful as it’s been, will rebound to our economic detriment.

The entire world is shorting the US right now, and we have earned it. The 2025 US deficit is projected at almost two trillion dollars, or 6% of GDP, resurrecting default concerns and incentivizing bearish bets on long-dated Treasuries. America is no longer a financial safe-haven or a flight-to-quality target.

From The Hill:

For the first time in recent memory, the American dollar is not the automatic “flight-to-safety” currency, sought out by investors worldwide during crisis periods and in moments of acute uncertainty. Furthermore, foreign investors appear to be reappraising the role of U.S. Treasury securities as a global haven asset as concerns mount over the capricious and somewhat autocratic nature of Trump’s policymaking. Threats to academic freedom, rule of law and judicial independence, alongside fears of political interference curtailing the Fed’s ability to execute its price stability mandate, have left many wondering about the safety and solidity of Treasurys.

The U.S. exceptionalism narrative (involving both equity market and economic performance) has been quickly replaced by recession fears.

The irony, of course, is the wording: make America great again when Trump 2.0 is fundamentally deconstructing America’s greatness — the huge loss in USG-supported R&D being perhaps the most frightening damage incurred. The Tech Bros are killing the golden goose that made them rich in the first place. Seriously, that is cutting off your head to spite your nose.

As our economy contracts, so will wages and employment and investment and confidence and innovation and … all of these dynamics will be met by a diminished or even paralyzed Federal response — by Trump-design.

When natural disasters hit states, Washington will tell them to go fish (like it did recently to Arkansas), now that we’ve finally rid ourselves of the unholy menace that was FEMA. Sure, the Red Cross will take care of everything because donations will skyrocket in this economy — not.

I know, I know. Right now it all just feels bad, like spotting a very destructive storm on the horizon, but that monster is coming, and it’s going to sit on our economy for a bad long stretch, forcing Trump to backtrack on tariffs, and forcing all levels of government in the US to start triaging the damage — even as our Federal government has been decimated by carelessly cruel staff reductions

Whatever Trump and DOGE saved us in short-term spending will be lost — several fold — to the longer-term costs incurred.

We have had two “business geniuses” as president: Herbert Hoover and now Trump again. Hoover wasn’t up to the task of leadership during the Great Depression, and Trump is willfully avoiding it in a Great Recession of his own making!

Maybe after this time, Americans will once again return to the firm consensus that running government like a business or with business “geniuses” on top is a VERY BAD IDEA.

I do feel bad for the Zoomers or Gen Z, just starting out and now being subjected to a man-made global economic crisis — one engineered by what has to become our last godawful Boomer president.

Sure, we can pin the blame for the pandemic on China’s lax scientific security, but this time around, the blame will fail completely on us in an unprecedented superpower suicide.

Voices are emerging in the Wilderness. There’s always Bernie, and now there’s the future in AOC, whom I greatly admire. But, for 2028, right now I’m watching J.B. Pritzker, because this is all going to get so much more ugly before the recovery begins in earnest.

Sure, there are all sorts of believers with their arms above their heads right now as the rollercoaster reaches the initial peak before surrendering to the thunderous descent. Their disillusionment will also be well earned but still unfair, because no Americans should be subjected to this sort of inside-job political sabotage while those in power so openly line their own pockets.

Our country — sad to say — is still climbing toward peak angry populism, with no serious solutions presently in the works.

Trump once offered that old chestnut about when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

Well, the looting of our government and economy is well underway, so we should all expect nothing less than a lot more political violence. So, keep building those bunkers, you billionaires and mega-millionaires, because you’re going to need them — again, by design.

That is my radical acceptance for the day … and it sucks.

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