Hell in a handbasket

| 3:00 pm EDT April 6, 2025
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We've launched the Palmer Report 2025 Operating Expenses Fund. If we can fully fund this, it'll bridge the gap and ensure that Palmer Report can keep fighting now and forever. I'm asking you to contribute what you can to our GoFundMe Page or our PayPal Page, both of which accept debit and credit cards. Thank you.

Lest we forget there is an odious little piece of feces called Donald Trump Jr. Junior is a murderer of rare animals, snorter of cocaine, industrial-strength moron, “Dumb” of “Dumb and Dumber.” Last night I was minding my own business when this retweet of an eXcrement from Junior flashed across my screen: “The price of stocks says almost nothing about the long term health of an economy.”

I was reminded that Republicans do not have a consistent metric for anything. When the stock market was up when Trump was in power it was great news and proof that he was a great “president.” When the stock market is down, suddenly it proves “nothing about the long term health of an economy.”

In the run up to the 2024 election, Trump warned that if Biden won the election, the stock market would plummet, inflation would inflate, unemployment would skyrocket — and other dire bullshit. Biden won, the stock market performed magnificently, inflation fell, unemployment dropped to a fifty year low, the GDP rose to a whopping 4.2% and the United States of America as an economic powerhouse was the envy of the world.

Back then Fox News and Trump apologists had to spin that good economic news into bad economic news. Today Fox News and Trump apologists have to spin bad economic news into good economic news. It’s a form of idiot’s delight, and the idiots of the world are accordingly delighted.

But for how long? At what point will they finally understand that there’s a reason why Trump bankrupted six casinos and has never in his life founded a successful business. Hitler’s Berlin lay in ruins when it occurred to Germans that “Der Fuhrer” maybe wasn’t such a great leader after all.

Today it’s looking like 1929, deja vu all over again. The stock market has crashed. Inflation is on the rise. Q2 projections suggest that the GDP will go negative. But this is worse than 1929 in one sense. Back then our allies were on our side and America shared its pain with the rest of the world.

Today our former allies couldn’t care less if America goes to hell in a handbasket. In fact they’re glad that the American economy is in the toilet and would be happy to give us the handbasket to go to hell in. They’re sneering at America’s pain. The European Union just announced retaliatory tariffs.

Experts are all but unanimous that the impact on global growth of Trump’s absurd Rose Garden press conference announcing worldwide tariffs will be negative. The question is just how negative. The mood in Europe is apprehensive. Members of the European Union are well aware that retaliatory tariffs could mean pain for its members as well, but see no choice in the matter but to launch them. In other words, unlike Trump, they actually understand tariffs.

“In economic terms, it makes no sense at all,” said Jordi Gual, the former chair of CaixaBank, Spain’s largest domestic lender. “It is hugely problematic, because we go back to a level we hadn’t seen since the 1930s.” Today Gual is professor of economics at IESE business school in Barcelona.

Someone made the analogy that Trump is burning down the house in order to bake a potato. I submit there is no potato. Trump is a loser, a fool, a stupid egomaniac. The Art of the Deal? Trump has no example of any such art anywhere in his history. Trump is a schlemiel, Yiddish for a stupid, awkward, unlucky loser. This is nothing more than another example of the “Art of the Schlemiel.”

It's been a tough week, a tough month, a tough year. For all of us. But the fight goes on. Because we know how important this is. Because we care. Because we're the ones who fight. It's you and me. It has been for a decade. And I'm never backing down. But Palmer Report does have operating expenses. And in this uncertain time, I truly need your help. For that reason I've launched the Palmer Report 2025 Operating Expenses Fund. If we can fully fund this, it'll bridge the gap and ensure that Palmer Report can keep fighting now and forever. I'm asking you to contribute what you can to our GoFundMe Page or our PayPal Page, both of which accept debit and credit cards. Thank you.