TRUMP CRUCIFIES THE ECONOMY & RUINS EASTER
The pocketbooks of regular Americans are already empty or emptying. These tariffs will force Americans to further tighten their belts. Additionally, every aspect of the economy, every business will be affected. Consumers will stop spending on everything but the essentials as uncertainty sets in. Job layoffs will increase as businesses suffer drops in sales. The only businesses that may see more demand will be repair centered and their parts prices will most likely increase for their customers.
APRIL 3, 2025: 73 days and TRUMP IS DESTROYING AMERICA
Expect your medicine to go up in price. India is a major suppler of medicine and pharmaceutical components. A 26% tariff has been added. Expect delays as the ports slow due to federal layoffs and added scrutiny. Expect Shortages. Budget for increases around 25%.
Expect restaurant sales to suffer as people opt for grocery stores. Tip staff will see a decrease in tips and hours. There will be fewer deliveries for delivery drivers.
Expect snack foods to be replaced by essentials. This includes to go drinks and foods at convenience stores. People will be more worried about driving less and filling up less often. More wear and tear on cars means more repairs. Drive less.
Your food prices will continue to rise. Canadian potash with its 10% tariff will affect the cost of fertilizers for crops across the board. 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum will affect everything in a can: beer and drinks, food, even non-foods. Americans are accustomed to year round access to foods from around the world.
Auto repair shops will charge more for parts, the majority of which are imported. Expect auto repair shops to be busier.
Expect car sales to plummet as all prices will rise. The tariffs will hit imports the hardest but American made car are also made from components made from abroad. Expect used auto prices to climb again. As new cars become too expensive, used car demand will rise and with it, the cost.
Tires do not grow on pine trees and oaks. Some things just can not be sourced in America. Tires are made of dozens of components sourced from around the globe. Some production facilities overseas can not move to America because they can not meet safety and environmental standards. America has a strong NIMBY response. BTW, those stupid truck nuts are probably made in China (54% tariffs) and your Viagra comes from Ireland, also under new tariffs at 20%.
Expect fewer online sales for small businesses and individual sellers as the import and customs fees change for international sales. Small sellers will be hit hard when buying inventory from abroad for resale. Previously permitted a waiver of customs fees on the first $800 coming in, this has been drastically reduced. Further, import shipping time will slow more. After firing federal workers and inspectors at the ports reduced staff, the increase in assessing added tariffs will cause further delays on remaining staff including the USPS which processes thousands of small packages from abroad every day. Look to BREXIT and all the confusion at the ports there after they left the EU.
Expect vacations to be altered or cancelled. This will hit the travel industry as a second blow as international travelers are reconsidering whether to risk traveling to the US and ending up detained by ICE and Customs.
The National Parks has eliminated overnight stays in some parks due to staffing shortages.
State parks can expect cuts as withdrawal of federal funds for state programs mean money will need to be rerouted to serve basic needs.
Expect more people to die this summer from heat and weather related events than ever before. Climate change denialism has halted research, grants, and even weather monitoring. As states reel from budget cuts due to reduced federal monies, there will be less money to address small programs such as green spaces and homelessness issues.
Expect more demand at thrift stores but fewer items for sale. People will hold on to things longer. More people will try to source furniture, clothing, and household goods at seconds shops creating demand. There will be less affordable new clothes and home goods as Vietnam and other countries are hit with tariffs which will result in higher costs on new items.
The minimum wage will NOT go up. People will just have less to spend. The factories from abroad Trump expects to return to the US will not appear overnight, if at all. It takes 3-5 years to build a facility. Further, many of these companies would rather wait out the next 4 fours than relocate to America where American wages are the main reason they outsourced.
Expect a stressed healthcare system. Imported goods from PPE to medicines to OR supplies come from around the world as a whole or as a component part. Prices for health services will reflect this.
More ERs will be crowded as health services are cut at health departments and neighborhood health clinics. The feds have drastically cut funding to public health. This will mean more illnesses will be left untreated and result in ER visits. More women will give birth as abortion access is restricted and funding for publicly provided contraceptives is cut. Infectious disease will rise as Kennedy blunders his way through the destruction of our health sciences.
Return to school will be more expensive than ever. Tax breaks that states offer may be cancelled as federal funding cuts to states reduces revenue. Further, reduced sales will mean reduced tax collection for the states. Laptops will cost more. Clothes and shoes and even the basics of paper and pens will increase.
Schools will receive less money and it will result in higher classroom populations and fewer programs. This includes afterhours school programs which reduce the childcare costs for working parents.
Expect the homeless population to climb. Higher housing costs will turn people onto the streets. Reduction in medical care for the mentally unwell has been cut and many more will end up homeless. Veterans will be among those adding to the homeless population because cuts to the VA means fewer available services to care for vets.
Expect more potholes and fewer infrastructure repairs as the feds lower tax rates for the wealthy and fail to return taxpayer monies to the states at the same levels.
Expect less federal response and assistance after disasters. Project 2025 wants to see FEMA defunded and dismantled. Watch as Trump holds emergency funds over governors of blue states.
We will see American jobs lost.
Don't even get me started on what will happen to our retirement account!
So much destruction in a mere 73 days.
Remember that Biden left us a strong, recovering economy and Trump has turned it to shit in less than 3 months.
OCTOBER 24, 2024 The Economist
READ MORE HERE:
Trump says the economy ‘went to hell’ under Biden. The opposite is true
Steven Greenhouse Sun 16 Mar 2025 10.00 EDT
By standard economic measures, the US economy was in excellent shape when Biden turned over the White House keys to Trump, even though most Americans, upset about inflation, told pollsters the economy was in poor shape.
Donald Trump keeps saying he inherited a terrible economy from Joe Biden and many Americans believe him, even though that’s not true. During his White House marketing event for Tesla on Tuesday, Trump said the US and its economy “went to hell” under Biden. Last week, in his national address to Congress, Trump said: “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.”
But the truth is that by standard economic measures, the US economy was in excellent shape when Biden turned over the White House keys to Trump, even though most Americans, upset about inflation, told pollsters the economy was in poor shape.
When Biden left office, the unemployment rate was a low 4.1%, and during Biden’s four years in office, the average jobless rate was lower than for any president since the 1960s. Trump has repeatedly railed against the high inflation under Biden, but the fact is that by the time Biden left office, the inflation rate had fallen to just 2.9% – down more than two-thirds from its peak and near the Federal Reserve’s inflation goal.
Not only that, the nation’s GDP growth has been impressive, rising at a solid 3.1% rate at the end of Biden’s term. Ever since the pandemic ended, economic growth in the US has been considerably stronger than in the UK, France, Germany and other G7 nations. Shortly before election day, the Economist magazine ran a story saying the US economy was “the envy of the world” and had “left other rich countries in the dust”.
Trump often says job growth under Biden was terrible, but the fact is that the US added 16.6m jobs during Biden’s presidency, more than during any four-year term of any previous US president. Under Trump, job growth was far worse – during his first four-year term, the nation lost 2.7m jobs overall, making Trump’s presidency the first since Herbert Hoover’s during which the nation suffered a net loss in jobs. The pandemic was largely responsible for this, but even during Trump’s first three years in office, before the pandemic hit, job growth was only half as fast as it was under Biden.
Recently, Trump has repeatedly boasted how his tariffs will bring back manufacturing. Trump fails to note, however, that Biden had considerable success in bringing bring back manufacturing and factory jobs. Under most recent presidents, the US lost manufacturing jobs, but under Biden, the nation gained an impressive 750,000 factory jobs, the most under any president since the 1970s. A big reason for this was that as a result of Biden’s green jobs legislation and the Chips Act to boost semiconductor production, manufacturing investment boomed, more than doubling during Biden’s four years in office.
Biden took considerable pride about how the economy performed under him, even though he failed to persuade most Americans that the it was doing well. In December, Biden wrote: “Incomes are up by nearly $4,000 adjusted for inflation [since he took office], and unions have won wage increases from 25% to 60% in industries like autos, ports, aerospace, and trucking. We’ve seen 20 million applications to start small businesses. Our economy has grown 3% per year on average the last four years – faster than any other advanced economy. Domestic energy production is at a record high.”
Many economists vigorously disagree with Trump’s claim that he inherited a poor economy. Paul Krugman wrote that in January, when Biden left office, the US had what was “very close to a Goldilocks economy, in which everything is more or less just right”. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, had even more glowing words. “President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” he said. “The US economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than pre-pandemic.”
Trump pays attention to one measure of the economy above all others: how the stock market is doing. During Biden’s four years, Wall Street did very well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 39% and the S&P 500 soared by 55.7%, including a 28% jump during 2024. In contrast, the stock market is down overall since Trump took office as investors have grown alarmed about the president’s tariff war against the US’s trading partners.
To be sure, there were some serious economic problems under Biden. Housing affordability was a major problem, and inflation rose to uncomfortable levels. The spike in prices was caused largely by two factors: the pandemic, which gave rise to worldwide supply chain problems, and Putin’s war in Ukraine, which pushed up food and fuel prices. But Trump, in denouncing Biden on inflation, ignores all that.
As Trump’s trade war spooks the markets and makes nervous CEOs rethink their investment plans, many economists are saying it’s more and more likely the US will stumble into recession this year.
Trump has a long history of refusing to accept blame for mistakes and problems, and by repeatedly claiming he inherited a horrible economy, he seems to be laying the groundwork to blame Biden if the country slides into a painful recession.
Trump often says job growth under Biden was terrible, but the fact is that the US added 16.6m jobs during Biden’s presidency, more than during any four-year term of any previous US president. Under Trump, job growth was far worse – during his first four-year term, the nation lost 2.7m jobs overall, making Trump’s presidency the first since Herbert Hoover’s during which the nation suffered a net loss in jobs. The pandemic was largely responsible for this, but even during Trump’s first three years in office, before the pandemic hit, job growth was only half as fast as it was under Biden.
Recently, Trump has repeatedly boasted how his tariffs will bring back manufacturing. Trump fails to note, however, that Biden had considerable success in bringing bring back manufacturing and factory jobs. Under most recent presidents, the US lost manufacturing jobs, but under Biden, the nation gained an impressive 750,000 factory jobs, the most under any president since the 1970s. A big reason for this was that as a result of Biden’s green jobs legislation and the Chips Act to boost semiconductor production, manufacturing investment boomed, more than doubling during Biden’s four years in office.
Biden took considerable pride about how the economy performed under him, even though he failed to persuade most Americans that the it was doing well. In December, Biden wrote: “Incomes are up by nearly $4,000 adjusted for inflation [since he took office], and unions have won wage increases from 25% to 60% in industries like autos, ports, aerospace, and trucking. We’ve seen 20 million applications to start small businesses. Our economy has grown 3% per year on average the last four years – faster than any other advanced economy. Domestic energy production is at a record high.”
Many economists vigorously disagree with Trump’s claim that he inherited a poor economy. Paul Krugman wrote that in January, when Biden left office, the US had what was “very close to a Goldilocks economy, in which everything is more or less just right”. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, had even more glowing words. “President Trump is inheriting an economy that is about as good as it ever gets,” he said. “The US economy is the envy of the rest of the world, as it is the only significant economy that is growing more quickly post-pandemic than pre-pandemic.”
Trump pays attention to one measure of the economy above all others: how the stock market is doing. During Biden’s four years, Wall Street did very well. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 39% and the S&P 500 soared by 55.7%, including a 28% jump during 2024. In contrast, the stock market is down overall since Trump took office as investors have grown alarmed about the president’s tariff war against the US’s trading partners.
