Where to begin. Perhaps a partial review of what His Majesty Donald J Trump stirred up recently would be a good start.
On Tuesday August 12, 2025, His Majesty President Donald Trump said Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon should either replace his economist or “just focus on being a DJ.” (David Solomon sometimes volunteers his time to serve as a DJ for charitable events.)
Apparently Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist, warned in a research note on Sunday that American consumers will end up absorbing an increasing share of the cost of the tariffs that Trump decided to impose. Of course they will. Anyone who took (and passed) freshman economics could tell you that.
Getting rid of Hatzius would be shooting the messenger, which is what Trump habitually does when he encounters news he doesn’t want to hear. Which is precisely what he did when he fired Chief Economist Erika McEntarfer of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when the BLS reported unemployment numbers he didn’t like. And oh yes. The numbers were “rigged” against him.
Then again on August 8 he claimed that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan was “highly conflicted” and demanded that Lip-Bu Tan be fired. Three days later, after a meeting at the White House, Trump apparently had an change of heart adding that Lip-Bu Tan’s “success and rise is an amazing story.”
On Friday, Trump promised (you know what a Trump promise is worth) a “major lawsuit” against the Fed over its building renovations. He took the opportunity to once again bash Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and demand that the Fed cut interest rates.
Obviously His Majesty is not quite aware that the Fed does not actually determine interest rates; it can only change the overnight rate. Since the Fed started “lowering rates” in September of 2024, pretty much all Treasury rates longer than two years have gone straight up.
Ten year treasury rates that are used to price mortgages are about ½ point higher in yield. And the dollar has depreciated about 10% against the Euro since Trump took the oath of office, thus making US Treasury securities less attractive to foreign investors. Which also reduces foreigners willingness to fund the US budget deficit.
The great negotiator also has leaned on Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices so that the US Government gets a 15% cut on their sales, presumably to China. The people in the Mafia who run the protection rackets couldn’t have done it any better.
And while we are on the related subject of law enforcement, Mr. Trump decided he was going to take over the Metropolitan Police Department, at least temporarily, in order to rid Washington DC of crime. So now Police Commissioner Trump, who as we know is acutely sensitive to due process, will be responsible for bringing down crime in the District. Now that Federalism has been tossed overboard—in another “emergency”—the question becomes what Mr Trump will do if the criminals decide not to cooperate.
As far as I know, no one in the White House has actually enunciated a new strategy for dealing with the problem. Maybe he will give DC criminals a good talking to on Truth Social and threaten to fire them.
To cap off a week of applied ignorance, according to the Wall Street Journal the White House announced on Friday that it would vet 19 Smithsonian Museums in Washington to “Fit Trump’s Historical Vision”. Interesting that Trump now claims to have a vision of history at all. He ought to share it with us if his staff can dream one up in time.
All of this since just last Friday, August 8. I shudder to think of what next week will bring.
JFB
