We've had bright Presidents, dumb Presidents, perceptive

[Colgate 64]

Presidents and clueless Presidents. And with all those, we have survived as a Constitutional Republic. But we have never before now had an Ignoramus for President, a small man who is so intellectually challenged that he firmly believes his own instincts trump whatever science or learning clearly indicates that he is wrong. A person with an inferiority complex so deep and profound that his entire life revolves around seeking and demanding adulation in order to conquer the ever-present ghost of Father Trump who told him he was a "loser".

I don't know how we're going to survive this caricature of a President, a man who is so flawed and so empowered by recent Supreme Court decisions and his echo chamber of adulation that he is impervious to reason, logic, popular opinion or world opinion. He is driving only be his thirst for vengeance against all who, real or imaginarily have taken positions against him and he is prepared to burn the house down in order to inflict punishment against all who have not recognized his inherent brilliance.

[Silent Type]

1. +1. Just read an article entitled, "Launching the Economic Version of the Iraq War" -- James Fallows.

https://fallows.substack.com/p/launching-the-economic-version-of

[Colgate 64]

7. Very appropriate

Although the Iraq War had an ostensible reason. Trump's starting a dumpster fire with the world economy has no reason other than satisfying his own perverse psychological necessities.

[jmellman]

2. This is Putin's revenge

In short, if you wanted to destroy America's position in the world – both politically and economically – you would be doing exactly what's happening. This ignoramus is only a tool. And his followers are either being blackmailed, threatened, or merely dumber than him.

[SheltieLover]

3. Absolutely

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Trump's Tariff Formula Slammed As 'Fake' And 'Incredibly Stupid' By Experts

trump is an idiot and is very bad at math. trump does not understand trade deficits and balance of trade numbers which is why trump keeps claiming that the US is subsidizing Canada. The math behind the trump tariffs is incredibly stupid and simplistic. Again trump is using a stupid formula because he is too stupid to understand the math
https://bsky.app/profile/forbes.com/post/3llweasa4at22

Link to tweet

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/04/03/trumps-tariff-formula-slammed-as-fake-and-incredibly-stupid-by-experts

The tariff rates unveiled by President Donald Trump on Wednesday stems from a simple formula based on U.S. trade imbalances with other countries—not the tariff rates they charge the U.S., along with “currency manipulation and trade barriers,” as the White House initially claimed.

Key Facts

Trump, debuting rates including 54% for China, 20% for the European Union and 26% for India, said the figures were based on “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating” that was then divided in half because Trump wanted to be “kind.”

Analyses posted on social media and in news articles determined the numbers were based on a much more simplistic calculation made by dividing a country’s trade surplus (representing the value by which a country’s exports exceeds the cost of its imports from the U.S.) by its total export value, then multiplying the figure by 0.5.

The formula matched the tariffs Trump debuted for China, the European Union, Indonesia, India and Vietnam, Ian Bremmer, a global political scientist and founder of Eurasia Group consultancy firm, pointed out on X, writing “this is…incredibly stupid.”

China, for example, had a trade surplus of $295 billion with the U.S. last year, with $438 billion worth of goods exported to the U.S.—$295 billion divided by $438 billion is equal to 67%, and divided in half equals the 34% tariff rate Trump debuted Wednesday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative later confirmed the formula by publishing what appears to be a complex math equation for calculating the tariff rates, but when stripped of its Greek letters, shows it’s essentially based on countries’ trade surpluses with the U.S. divided by their export value then divided in half.

The approach suggests countries could lower their tariffs by buying more U.S. products, which would be “very difficult for Asian, particularly poorer Asian countries, to meet US demand . . . given that U.S. goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power is lower for countries targeted with the highest levels of tariffs,” Natixis senior economist Trinh Nguyen told CNBC.

Chief Critics
“If the Trump administration didn't calculate the "tariff rates" other countries are supposedly imposing on us by using the formula trade deficit/imports, it's an amazing coincidence that every single country's "tariff rate" is equal to trade deficit/imports,” economic journalist James Surowiecki wrote on X. Thomas Sampson of the London School of Economics told the BBC "the formula is reverse engineered to rationalise charging tariffs on countries with which the US has a trade deficit. There is no economic rationale for doing this and it will cost the global economy dearly."

Again, the formula used by trump is very stupid

[Colgate 64]

10. Yep. The numbers have the same legitimacy

as all the other numbers he pulls out of his ass when spinning his Tales from the Maga Crypt. They mean nothing, have no basis in fact or even in reality but are still literally taken as truth by millions of our fellow citizens. The ingenuousness of a large portion of the American public is something that I have never been able to get my arms around. Have we lost all skills of critical thinking?

[Tickle]

5. We are resetting global trade

Faux introduced it with a 1996 video of Nancy Pelosi backing rumpy.
Tariffs will bring back jobs. Which I'm sure is true or could be true. It would take years to happen and in the meantime we die off.
Ok I can only watch for minutes change channel

[maptap22]

6. And we have never had a whole party complicit in the destruction of the country

Republicans can stop this...when the shit goes down, we need to keep reminding voters of that fact.

[Colgate 64]

8. In truth, it's not a political party any more.

It's just a cult, with the same legitimacy as Heavens' Gate.

[tanyev]

9. Exactly. They could have stopped it a long time ago.

But most of them are cheering him on.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. trump's formula for these tariffs is stupid

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. MaddowBlog-The Trump White House keeps trying (and failing) to make mathematical formulas work

During the pandemic, Team Trump tried to craft a formula that told them what they wanted to hear. With tariffs, they did it again. Both were failures.
https://bsky.app/profile/hategop.bsky.social/post/3llzbsvwzps2b

The Trump White House keeps trying (and failing) to make mathematical formulas work.
During the pandemic, Team Trump tried to craft a formula that told them what they wanted to hear. With tariffs, they did it again. Both were failures.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-white-house-keeps-trying-make-mathematical-formulas-work-rcna199733

Roughly five years later, the Republican president is back in the Oval Office; he and his team are again mismanaging a crisis; and the whole operation is again trying and failing to concoct mathematical formulas. As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown summarized:

When President Donald Trump presented his sweeping global tariffs from the Rose Garden on Wednesday, even the most basic questions were left up in the air. At the top of the list: How did the White House derive the wildly disparate rates listed on the graphic Trump so proudly displayed? As global markets roiled in the aftermath of the announcement, the White House gave an answer about its calculations that was patently ridiculous.

Economic journalist James Surowiecki helped get the ball rolling on this, concluding that to arrive at Trump’s tariff rates, the White House simply “took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us” — a method Surowiecki described as “extraordinary nonsense.”.......

CNBC’s Steve Liesman told viewers, “Nobody ever heard of this formula. Nobody’s ever used this formula. So, I’m sorry, but the conclusion seems to be the president kind of made this up as he went along.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum, told the Washington Post, “They’ve got an indefensible foundation to an indefensible policy.”

Ian Dunt, a British journalist, added in reference to the White House’s methodology, “It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is. You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticize it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought.”

The Post’s report, quoting two White House sources, said Trump “personally selected” the formula, which “bears some striking similarities to a methodology published by Peter Navarro, Trump’s hard-charging economic adviser.”

That same article quoted a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking, who said, in reference to the president, “He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore. Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do.”

It’s the worst possible combination of conditions: We’re left with a bad policy, based on a bad formula, embraced by indifferent officials who don’t know what they’re doing, but who are in positions of enormous power.