by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Donald Trump, a man who inherited some wealth and the notion that he was a businessman, is, in fact, a colossal doofus when it comes to understanding how businesses actually work. Several of his businesses have failed due to Trump's ineptitude (How in the hell can a casino fail?), and of the ones that have survived, some are said to have done so through the Trump family laundering money for Russian oligarchs. The fact that he has been so aggressive in keeping his tax returns and business records away from public scrutiny adds to the perception that all that glitters in the Trump world may not be as golden as it seems.
Aside from bankruptcies, the Trump family has also been sanctioned by courts for stealing from a children's charity that they set up, and for Trump University, a supposed institute of higher learning which also proved to be just a scam.
So when it comes to business, Donald Trump lacks credibility - and the professor from Wharton Business School who referred to Trump as being "the dumbest son-of-a-bitch" that he ever taught, was likely giving a fairly accurate assessment of his former student's academic abilities and business leadership potential.
But, setting his lifetime of failures aside, Donald Trump still regards himself as having a "big" brain, and he still feels that he has an instinct for business - among many other things. Add to that the fact that he is a bully, and we have a situation in which a person in a position of power makes rash decisions bused on a gut feeling and then pushes those decisions into policies that affect real people.
Early in his administration Trump moved to incite the rabble in his political base by instituting a travel ban from several Middle Eastern countries, something the press rightly dubbed a "Muslim ban." As that political ploy was being kicked about in the courts and began to lose steam with the public, he again donned his racist robes and went after the Chinese. Trump, to the shock and dismay of even some in his own party, suddenly decided that the US trade imbalance with China was hurting our country, and that he could fix it with the simple solution of placing tariffs on several items that were being imported from China - though certainly not on any items that were being imported by businesses belonging to his daughter, Ivanka.
And so he decreed that tariffs would take immediate effect on certain Chinese goods.
However, there were a couple of major problems with Trump's rash decision. First, those evil Chinese responded in kind with tariffs on American goods - and second, in some cases they even cancelled pre-existing orders of American goods and produce. American soybean growers saw their markets in China disappear overnight as the Chinese quickly found new suppliers. Trump, the businessman with the big brain, then had to put a large sector of American agriculture on a welfare program to correct his impetuous blunder.
And there was another problem with the tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump argued that the tariffs would be paid by China and would thus help the US economy by making up for a trade shortfall that had existed for many years. But in reality, the tariffs are actually incorporated into the end sales prices of the products - and paid by consumers. Americans shopping at places like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target were paying the tariffs that Trump had enacted during one of his Twitter rampages.
Way to go, genius!
And now Trump is trying to tell the U.S. Postal Service how to run its business. Donald Trump is known for being a bully and for being petty. He has an outspoken animosity toward billionaire Jeff Bezos over things that The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Bezos, has printed about him, and Trump seems intent on using the power of the presidency to get back at Bezos.
Another company that Jeff Bezos owns, the one that made him the world's richest person, is Amazon.com. Donald Trump has decided that the U.S. Postal Service should be charging Amazon - and presumably other on-line retailers as well - more for delivering their packages. Trump alleges that Amazon has a sweetheart deal with the post office that actually results in the post office losing money on every package that it delivers for Amazon.
So, to screw with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, Trump is also screwing with the U.S. Postal Service. He is saying that he will block stimulus assistance to the post office until it raises its package rates. He also never passes up an opportunity to disparage America's most popular government institution - the post office - and referred to it recently as "a joke." And there is a notion floating about that the reason some Republican politicians are so opposed to voting by mail is that process would ultimately benefit the post office.
Of course, as with tariffs, the raise in postal rates on packages would not come out of Bezos's pocket. It would be American consumers bearing the heavier costs.
Thanks again, genius!
But all of that does not mean that Donald Trump is one hundred percent anti-post office. He recently made a big fuss about getting his name and signature on all of the government stimulus checks to individuals, an overt campaign ploy, and then when somebody informed him that many of the checks were directly deposited to banks and the people who benefitted from those were not seeing his name, he decided to send out letters to all of those poor souls - via the United States Postal Service - informing them that he had put money in their bank accounts.
A con-man's gotta do what a con-man's gotta do!
First and foremost, Donald Trump uses his position as the head of the government of the United States of America to meet his personal needs. If Americans want a president who puts their needs first, they are going to have to put someone else in the White House.
November is coming!
Citizen Journalist
Donald Trump, a man who inherited some wealth and the notion that he was a businessman, is, in fact, a colossal doofus when it comes to understanding how businesses actually work. Several of his businesses have failed due to Trump's ineptitude (How in the hell can a casino fail?), and of the ones that have survived, some are said to have done so through the Trump family laundering money for Russian oligarchs. The fact that he has been so aggressive in keeping his tax returns and business records away from public scrutiny adds to the perception that all that glitters in the Trump world may not be as golden as it seems.
Aside from bankruptcies, the Trump family has also been sanctioned by courts for stealing from a children's charity that they set up, and for Trump University, a supposed institute of higher learning which also proved to be just a scam.
So when it comes to business, Donald Trump lacks credibility - and the professor from Wharton Business School who referred to Trump as being "the dumbest son-of-a-bitch" that he ever taught, was likely giving a fairly accurate assessment of his former student's academic abilities and business leadership potential.
But, setting his lifetime of failures aside, Donald Trump still regards himself as having a "big" brain, and he still feels that he has an instinct for business - among many other things. Add to that the fact that he is a bully, and we have a situation in which a person in a position of power makes rash decisions bused on a gut feeling and then pushes those decisions into policies that affect real people.
Early in his administration Trump moved to incite the rabble in his political base by instituting a travel ban from several Middle Eastern countries, something the press rightly dubbed a "Muslim ban." As that political ploy was being kicked about in the courts and began to lose steam with the public, he again donned his racist robes and went after the Chinese. Trump, to the shock and dismay of even some in his own party, suddenly decided that the US trade imbalance with China was hurting our country, and that he could fix it with the simple solution of placing tariffs on several items that were being imported from China - though certainly not on any items that were being imported by businesses belonging to his daughter, Ivanka.
And so he decreed that tariffs would take immediate effect on certain Chinese goods.
However, there were a couple of major problems with Trump's rash decision. First, those evil Chinese responded in kind with tariffs on American goods - and second, in some cases they even cancelled pre-existing orders of American goods and produce. American soybean growers saw their markets in China disappear overnight as the Chinese quickly found new suppliers. Trump, the businessman with the big brain, then had to put a large sector of American agriculture on a welfare program to correct his impetuous blunder.
And there was another problem with the tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump argued that the tariffs would be paid by China and would thus help the US economy by making up for a trade shortfall that had existed for many years. But in reality, the tariffs are actually incorporated into the end sales prices of the products - and paid by consumers. Americans shopping at places like Walmart, Best Buy, and Target were paying the tariffs that Trump had enacted during one of his Twitter rampages.
Way to go, genius!
And now Trump is trying to tell the U.S. Postal Service how to run its business. Donald Trump is known for being a bully and for being petty. He has an outspoken animosity toward billionaire Jeff Bezos over things that The Washington Post, a newspaper owned by Bezos, has printed about him, and Trump seems intent on using the power of the presidency to get back at Bezos.
Another company that Jeff Bezos owns, the one that made him the world's richest person, is Amazon.com. Donald Trump has decided that the U.S. Postal Service should be charging Amazon - and presumably other on-line retailers as well - more for delivering their packages. Trump alleges that Amazon has a sweetheart deal with the post office that actually results in the post office losing money on every package that it delivers for Amazon.
So, to screw with Amazon and Jeff Bezos, Trump is also screwing with the U.S. Postal Service. He is saying that he will block stimulus assistance to the post office until it raises its package rates. He also never passes up an opportunity to disparage America's most popular government institution - the post office - and referred to it recently as "a joke." And there is a notion floating about that the reason some Republican politicians are so opposed to voting by mail is that process would ultimately benefit the post office.
Of course, as with tariffs, the raise in postal rates on packages would not come out of Bezos's pocket. It would be American consumers bearing the heavier costs.
Thanks again, genius!
But all of that does not mean that Donald Trump is one hundred percent anti-post office. He recently made a big fuss about getting his name and signature on all of the government stimulus checks to individuals, an overt campaign ploy, and then when somebody informed him that many of the checks were directly deposited to banks and the people who benefitted from those were not seeing his name, he decided to send out letters to all of those poor souls - via the United States Postal Service - informing them that he had put money in their bank accounts.
A con-man's gotta do what a con-man's gotta do!
First and foremost, Donald Trump uses his position as the head of the government of the United States of America to meet his personal needs. If Americans want a president who puts their needs first, they are going to have to put someone else in the White House.
November is coming!
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