We are now several weeks into the second term for President Donald J. Trump. I remember writing after Trump was elected in 2024 with less than 50% of the vote, that chaos would take place for some time with the second term of a president whose first term had plenty of it. Chaos works for President Trump because it keeps everyone on the edge not knowing what may be coming next and how that will impact their lives. Usually, chaos is not something that business markets, allies, advisories and most people want from a president. What is wanted is stability, transparency, honesty and openness from any president. We never get any of those personality characteristics from the current president.
The president has fired 17 inspector generals from various federal departments. Each office includes an inspector general (or IG) and employees charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department. These offices were established to make sure federal resources are being handled in an open, honest and efficient manner. They are the watchdogs of the federal government to ensure that there is no corruption or criminal activity within the department they are assigned to oversee. Sounds like something most people would want in place unless corruption and criminal activity is your intent.
Imposing on again and off again tariffs on the countries of Canada, Mexico and possibly the European Union is just plain stupid and economically counterproductive. Tariffs will raise prices of the products that are subject to this presidential action and customers will have to pay higher prices for goods, basically a tax that is paid by Americans buying the products from countries subjected to the Trump tariff. I have read where Trump believes that more widespread tariffs, one of the most regressive forms of taxation, could replace the income tax, a much more progressive form of taxation. Regressive taxation is beneficial for wealthier individuals because it often places a greater burden for tax revenue on those least able to afford sales taxes, tariffs, property taxes, value added taxes. Progressive taxation, income taxes and estate taxes place an equal or greater burden for tax revenue on the more affluent members of society. Shockingly President Trump, a supposed billionaire, favors the more regressive forms of taxation.
Laying off or firing as many as a third of the employees of the FBI solely because they were assigned a role in the January 6th investigation seems to be a dumb idea that will make the country much less safe and greatly aid our adversaries. Hopefully while co-presidents, Donald Trump and Elon Musk won’t leave the country at great risk by their foolish actions with the FBI. Terrorists are watching and self-inflicted chaos at the FBI, and now the CIA, could prove the opening that terrorists could use to inflict harm on the U.S. Creating the opportunity for some type of terrorist attack may be part of the plan to declare Marshall Law or some other type of emergency declaration to further strengthen the hand of the current president to rule without any pushback from the disillusioned people, the press, judiciary, and Democrats.
Destruction of the FBI is perhaps one of the most vengeful actions taken by any president for over 100 years and is not any way to run a country. President Trump demonstrated his incompetence during his first term as president. It has been estimated that over 400,000 extra Americans died of Covid, and countless numbers became ill because President Trump downplayed the pandemic and did not follow the recommendations of disease experts at the time but rather played politics dealing with a disease resulting in a worse outcome. He grew the federal debt by $7+ trillion (increase the debt 40%) during his first term, the most by any president in history during a 4-year term.
We now function as a country under the rule of someone who has total disregard for the constitution and the law. He has been emboldened by bought and paid for Republican appointed members of the Supreme Court. Having a lawless wannabe king, he recently called himself a King, will never end well for the country and most Americans. It is well known that the wealthiest individuals do extremely well during times of economic chaos because they have sizeable amounts of risk capital. Risk capital is money they can easily lose based on risky investments which will have little or no bearing on how they live their lives. If a billionaire loses $25 million on a bad investment, the personal economic impact is miniscule, however, such an investment that hits big could mean realizing millions beyond the initial investment. Most Americans have little, or no risk capital and economic downturns and upheaval create great hardship on their economic wellbeing.
