I have lived through some strange times in my life, but it was never on my bingo card for the US government to extort its own businesses and take stakes in private enterprise. I have had to think long and hard about this, because it is so antithetical to the American free market capitalist model that it’s hurting my head.
Aside from my suspicion that, before Trump leaked that the administration was considering taking a stake in Intel, he probably gave the nod to his rich buddies to buy Intel stock. Not a bad tip, given that the Intel stock price rose 7% and a further 2% in after-hours trading. It’s not the first recent step in this direction. Through the DOD, they are also taking a 15% stake in MP Materials, who own the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, with an agreement to purchase its output, though the refinement plant will not come onstream until 2028.
It doesn’t stop there, though. Nvidia and AMD have both recently been granted an export license to export advanced AI chips to China, on condition of a 15% revenue share with the government. This effectively amounts to another Trump tax on American companies, this time in the form of an export tax. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, said of the deal, ‘It could serve as a blueprint for other industries. ’ This is now an administration addicted to taxing its businesses and consumers to fund the lifestyles of the ultra-rich, while removing critical services from the vulnerable. It’s a recipe for economic calamity.
It’s imperative to note that these new government revenue streams are NOT being derived at a cost to foreign competitors, but rather at the expense of US corporate profits, which also manifest themselves as a federal sales tax on consumers. Bessent is currently boasting of $300 billion plus in tariff revenues for 2025. Firstly, that represents a $300 billion tax on US importers, but more importantly, it barely covers the budget deficit for the single month of July. To put that into perspective, interest payments on US debt are climbing all the time and have now reached the $1 trillion mark for 2025. This means that even with the significant uplift in tariff revenue, it has little impact on just interest payments, so the debt continues to grow at an unsustainable level. Tariff revenue is not even keeping pace with government spending, let alone debt interest payments.
So, to be absolutely clear, American import companies under this administration are being subjected to an average 18% tax hike. This number varies depending on the source of the imported goods. These goods can’t leave US ports of entry until this tax has been paid to the US government in the form of a tariff payment. As a consumer, you are not impacted until the importer decides how to manage the 18% additional cost to them. They will then decide how much of their new tax bill to pass on to the wholesaler, who will, in turn, decide how much to pass on to the retailer, who will ultimately set the price for you, the consumer. The one absolute certainty in all of this is that you will be paying more for consumer goods and groceries. It’s just basic economics, and we are already seeing these costs rising right now.
The government doesn’t give a damn who charges whom what by the time you have to pay for it, because they got their cut before the goods even left the dock. It should be noted that the current average tariff rates in 2025 are the highest they have been since 1934, to put some context around it. In 2024, the average tariff rate was around 2.2%, nearly 16% lower than they are today. So when Scott Bessent and Trump go on Fox Entertainment Network to boast about tariff revenue, they are boasting about money they stole from Americans. It is that simple.
Trump and his acolytes lied to your face when they told you growth would pay for the money they stole from you to give to the ultra-rich. Tax cuts for the rich have NEVER, and I mean NEVER, paid for themselves, let alone addressed the ever-increasing national debt. There is no data, NONE to prove their ‘jam tomorrow’ theory. We're revisiting the Trump fantasy economics proposition, which suggests you just don’t get it. Trust us, we know what we are doing. When a guy who tells you this is the guy who added $7.8 trillion to the national debt in his first term, and he’s now trying to sell you some more snake oil, it might be an idea to take a pass.
Despite the expensive, performative politics this administration has pursued, its actions have served to make America poorer, unless you are in the top 10%. They have delivered benefits to the chosen few at the expense of the many. The whole circus performance is about chumming the water with wild claims of savings or alleged misuse of funds to rile up the base. In the case of DOGE, they even sweetened the deal with the promise of a DOCE Dividend. There were promises of $7,000 checks as people were asked to report on their friends and neighbours.
The checks never arrived because there have been no measurable savings, just false promises and bare-faced lies. When the dust settles and this tyranny is over, we will find that far from saving money, DOGE was a net cost to the US taxpayer. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this piece by Jessie Blaeser in Politico from August 12th.
Through July, DOGE said it has saved taxpayers $52.8 billion by canceling contracts, but of the $32.7 billion in actual claimed contract savings that POLITICO could verify, DOGE’s savings over that period were closer to $1.4 billion.
Despite the administration’s claims, not a single one of those 1.4 billion dollars will lower the federal deficit unless Congress steps in. Instead, the money has been returned to agencies mandated by law to spend it.
I would highly recommend you read the full report. This is excellent investigative work by Jessie. The point I’ve been making time and time again is that the whole agenda is a smoke and mirrors exercise, while they strip mine America to feed the rich at the expense of the poor and the vulnerable.
The top 10% of earners now account for 49% of spending in a country where 70% of the economy is built on consumer spending.
To put that into perspective, the economy is being propped up by the rich, who have been handed money from the poor to fuel their consumption. Meanwhile, ‘buy now pay later’ companies owned by the very same rich people are seeing an explosion in demand from the working poor to buy their weekly groceries. FACT - 30% of Americans now use BNPL. In 2023, BNPL loans amounted to $75 billion, a number that we can safely assume has grown since.
According to a report by the New York Times on 30th May 2025:
In the Biden era, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned that pay-later customers would be especially vulnerable if the economy worsened, and called for measures to safeguard them. That’s in jeopardy as President Trump has essentially tried to dismantle the watchdog, Grady McGregor reports.
I have made all the NYT links available so they are not behind a paywall; please take a moment to read where appropriate. Economists have persistently warned that consumers are increasingly facing an affordability crisis. We already know that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and we have reached the point now where the bottom 20% are living on borrowed time and using credit to feed their children. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that this is simply unsustainable.
What is truly terrifying is that the US is on the verge of a wave of inflation and job losses as the economy struggles to adapt to a new reality, one that was self-inflicted by an economic imbecile enabled by people who should know better. Government spending is out of control, the trade deficit is widening, and both imports and exports are falling. Reporting shows that overseas exporters are NOT eating any of the imposed tariffs, and retailers have had enough of eating them, too. It is an economic death spiral that Trump will not be able to distract his way out of
I would suggest that he throws Puntin under the bus and banks the $90 billion on offer from Ukraine to buy US weapons. Everywhere he turns, there are no good news stories. Tariff revenues are being outrun by debt interest. China is looking to block Nvidia and AMD chip orders, which means there will be no 15% cut of revenue. If this comes to pass, Nvidia and AMD will take a massive profit hit.
Auto manufacturers are already posting multi-billion-dollar losses as a result of tariff-driven input cost increases. The cracks in the US economy are appearing, and there is no viable plan to stop what is about to become an arterial bleed. You now have a situation where US trading partners are starting to circle, seeing opportunities to profit from the US economy circling the drain. Trade routes are being rewired as China cancels soybean and other agricultural orders, leading to record farm bankruptcies. The cancellation of pork exports to the US is another big hit, as that trade has now been rerouted to Spain.
In a report on 4th July 2025 in the UK Independent by James Liddell headlined
US is the only country facing tourism decline as Trump policies to cost $29 billion in visitor revenue
He notes that the US conducted a study of the economic impact of tourism in 184 countries:
The U.S. is expected to be the only one out of 184 countries to see foreign visitor spending fall in 2025, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The report goes on :
The study suggests that the U.S. economy is on track to lose $12.5 billion in international spending this year alone – but the actual shortfall might be much greater.
Based on the research firm’s original projections, the U.S. economy was expected to gain $16.3 billion in revenue, according to an analysis by Forbes. Instead, the total deficit may be as high as $28.8 billion.
My point is that there are no areas of the economy that Trump can point to that are delivering any benefit from the Trump economic agenda. It is now carrying $37 trillion of debt and a debt-to-GDP ratio approaching 30%, with rising bond yields, and capital flight in progress. Trust has evaporated in America, on both trade and global security. The US is NOT ‘hot’ as Trump claims, it is on fire and not in a good way, because he’s the arsonist. The US is attempting to bully nations that, if they sold off their US bonds, could instantly throw the US into recession. Japan are even evaluating BRICS membership, as are ASEAN nations.
Trump, since taking office, has, by his failed extortion attempts, forced once loyal trading partners to re-evaluate their relationships with the US. The only winner as a result of his stupidity is unquestionably China. The US is now even on the CIVICUS Watchlist, a human rights watchlist. CIVICUS reports:
The USA remains on the Watchlist as the assault on civic freedoms continues. The first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term exhibited clear signs of democratic backsliding: power consolidated in the executive, loyalists installed across institutions, independent media stifled, dissent criminalised and marginalised groups targeted.
You can also take a look at the current Amnesty International assessment of the United States here.
There is not an aspect of civil society in the US that is not under attack from the government. From women’s rights to gay rights, immigration rights and voting rights, US society is under siege from its own government. Civil society is under threat to the point where countries around the world are issuing travel advisories to their citizens advising them not to travel to the US.
It’s not until you break it all down that you realise just how desperate the situation is. Someone commented on my last post that we need less analysis and more solutions. I have already written about the only solution open to Americans is economic disengagement.
The Trump magic circus continues its tour of the minds of the nation
When I first read Project 2025 in the summer of 2024, I was shocked that such an extensive, meticulous vision for reimagining American society was being so openly shared. Mandate for Leadership, a conservative vision for America, had existed since the Reagan years but had largely been kept hidden from public view.
It is time to wake up, because failure to do so will see American society burned to the ground, and it will take at least a generation to repair. Meanwhile, the world will have moved on after feeding off the carcass Trump left behind. My friends, there is no margin for error here because I’m pretty sure that Democrats have decided they are just going to sit back and wait for Trump to set himself on fire, then inherit the ashes.
Then it will be back to the same old same old with the restoration of fundamental rights. Just enough to keep the population anaesthetised to serve the corporations that own the Democratic Party. It’s time to stop deluding yourself that you have any power whatsoever. I know it’s hard to hear, but unless someone is prepared to lead from the front with a people-focused vision for a better tomorrow, you’ll be a pawn as Democratic leadership delivers Republican Lite.
I’ve said it before, but it doesn’t have to be this way. However, I sense absolutely no appetite for social revolution outside a few very committed Democrats who could deliver real transformative change. Sadly, these are the very legislators the Democratic establishment excludes from leadership roles or policy groups. For that to change, a Democratic activist revolution is needed, and maybe now is not the time for that. It’s probably better to regain power then clean house.
I want you to know I do genuinely want to write about good news, but I can’t find any. I’m taking a day of rest tomorrow because I’m still not over almost three weeks of COVID, and if I’m honest, writing every day this week has taken its toll. I’ll be back Saturday.
I shake my head in mourning for our educational system every time I see a Trump sign in the window or unkempt front yard of a rented house. My astonishment grows every time I see the Trump Flag flying on the pole of the little bullfighting ring as I drive by it on the Escalon Belota road, where all the signage is in Spanish.
Thank you for speaking the truth, even while you are under the weather with Covid. I appreciate it. Truth and justice DO matter. Lies, misinformation and the enduring propaganda are fooling so many, causing a painful, cruel downward trajectory.