Think about the 31st Newly!
Why? Last call for a steuer. Oh no, I don't know where I'm going to pick up.
“By the way, steuer, that's how steuer is a key to an honest stress.”
Is that easy? Of course, make everything automatic. Steuer is long, eh? No, just a little bit. No, then?
Hold it, now it's time for steuers. With the same steuers. It's about the 31st Newly. Donald Trump's catastrophic escalation of this already disastrous war in Iran is tanking our economy.
Let me show you some of the most recent metrics. Oil is back over $100, as Steve Rottener explains, gas has above $4. I think the price of crude will be $150 a barrel at this rate. And gas will be on average $5, $6 a gallon, brutal numbers for inflation. Under Donald Trump, the debt held by the federal government, has now officially surpassed
$100% of GDP by 2030, it'll shoot past its all-time record of World War II Great Work There Donald Trump's draconian cuts to healthcare, education, and far and aid.
The chainsaw that was dosed, destroying the federal government and destroying critical programs.
It was rationalized that it would balance the budget as Steve Rottener explains. Take a look at charts like Ratner, where chart geeks here on the Midas Touch. Thanks to his tax cuts for the rich. The deficit is on track to hit almost 7% of GDP by 2036. Trump claimed his tariffs would bring about a golden age of American manufacturing.
Since his reelection, we've lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs. The same period of time, former president Biden created 625,000 jobs. Donald Trump losing jobs, Biden massively creating manufacturing jobs. The Trump regime clearly has its short traders out there. They seem to be working with Treasury Secretary Bescent in order to try to shorten manipulate
the market for crude.
“That's why we've been talking a lot about crack spreads, the Delta, or difference between”
the price of crude and the refinery price, but the crack spreads are increasing. The price of crude is increasing. The price at the pump is dramatically increasing, and the attempts to short ain't working like they used to. You take a look at the 30 year fixed rate mortgage, 6.85% that'll be over 7% in no time.
But Donald Trump made a lot of money. Compare with the amount of money Donald Trump's made in the past year and a half.
Not only made 4.2 billion dollars, it's not even close to any former president.
No one even is in the realm. It won't even register on a graph. What other president? No one did what he did. He's a crook.
He's corrupt. He's a criminal. Literally, he's actually a felon. But his point with everything, though, still, after it's clear that tariffs have had this catastrophic effect after it is clear that Donald Trump escalating the war.
Everyone wants to be involved in what is he doing more tariffs, more war. It's like dystopian, Oprah, although she brought us Dr. Phil, so pretty freaking dystopian in and of itself and Oz, so pretty dystopian in itself.
But Donald Trump, over the past week and a half, 25% tariffs, basically, on anything coming
from Brazil, because Donald Trump wants to help the insurrectionist former president Jair Bolsonaro's kid, Flavio Bolsonaro, beat president Lula and take away Brazil's sovereignty, so Donald Trump's using tariffs as a way to try to extort the people of Brazil to vote Bolsonaro. Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on a subclass of products from Canada, hockey sticks and
other stuff, lots of exceptions, but 50% tariffs there. Then on Friday or Thursday night, Donald Trump announced, so-called section 301 tariffs against 60 economies throughout the world, Australia, UK, moron, Canada, European Union, all these places and economic blocks. Donald Trump says that they are supporting involuntary servitude and that as a result of promoting
forced labor and slave labor, the United States is going to sit in judgment of the European Union, Canada, Australia, UK, all of these countries, but the Trump regime says, we don't do it. They do it. But Donald Trump, in the section 301 tariffs, doesn't specifically make a finding that
they do. He says, because these countries have not proven the negative that they don't. We find them guilty under a section 301 investigation because they don't prove that they don't get stuff from forced labor. So now we're going to put tariffs 10 to 12 and a half percent across all of these products
“and all these countries are like, what the hell are you talking about?”
You think we do anything different than the United States is we have living wages here.
We have free health care here.
Employees take breaks and vacations and have paternity and maternity. We have a whole system here and you're accusing us of forced labor. The United States is calling us forced labor in the European Union in Canada and Australia what the hell are you talking about and here's Donald Trump asked about the explosive
“diarrhea going around in lettuce right now and he's asked, so can people eat lettuce?”
Trump's like, it's Mexico's fault. It's Canada's fault with the wildfires. Mexico's fault with the diarrhea lettuce, even though it's not Mexico's fault. I mean, it's here. They're covering up what's really happening in my opinion here.
But Donald, I'm going to tariff them, I'm going to have to tariff them, like, okay, it's the dumbest thing ever, I mean, you're going to tariff them. That's your solution to everything here. Play this clip. There's this nasty parasite that is giving people in nine states explosive diarrhea.
What is it going to be safe to eat lettuce? I can't. I don't know. I have a thought about it. First of all, I've been asked that question.
Are you eating lettuce recently?
I should always have more lettuce.
I can't let any of you, Peter.
“No, that's a very interesting question from you.”
I didn't think you'd ask that guy to have a question. Nobody wants to ask that question, but, well, it's inside. There's this fluid company I guess from Mexico. It's changing. It's making a lot of people sick.
That is the CDC's term. Well, I think we'll get into it. I think we'll get into it. I'm going to put a major tariff on text on the next account because of the lettuce. And we're going to put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke.
All right? We'll get a couple. Which would you have that? The lettuce or the smoke? I think I'll take the smoke.
I've got this little wrecked my daughter's swimming. Well, it shows up a lot of country. I've told Canada they have to do something about it.
You know, we've never had this problem.
“One of us said we have this problem with Canada.”
So we'll have to talk to them about that only. I want to bring in Justin Wolfers right now. My interview with Justin. He is the chief economist at the Midas Touch Network. He's got platypus economics.
That's his platform. Let's bring in my interview with Justin Wolfers. I want to bring in now, Justin Wolfers chief economist over at the Midas Touch Network. And founder of platypus economics. Make sure you subscribe to Justin Wolfers YouTube channel at platypus economics.
Justin, great to see you as always. Last weekend, you and I discussed the Trump regime putting tariffs on Brazil, putting tariffs earlier this week. We talked about on Canada. And now there are these sweeping tariffs against 60 economies throughout the world.
Portedly under a section of the 1974 Act Trade Act Section 301. And it's saying that all of these 60 economies in one way or another engaged in forced and voluntary servitude and forced labor. And so the United States is saying, for example, the European Union and the UK support forced labor in somehow a way that the United States doesn't.
And therefore there needs to be 10, 12 and a half percent tariffs on these countries. This is of course as this catastrophic war is escalating. And now we're back in tariff everybody mode while the cost of living is going up as a result of the catastrophic war. It seems like the perfect storm.
Justin, at least it seems like a good opportunity for you and made a chat. It doesn't seem like a good idea. There's so many ways to get into this.
First of all, let me just put together the two stories that you just started with there been.
And then we could really get into this set of tariffs because there's a lot to understand here. Normally when the economy goes up and down, it's because of waves of optimism and pessimism and what economists call demand shocks. We all go shopping all at once.
Then we produce a lot but we may find it hard to produce enough and that causes inflation to go up. So, or everyone gets pessimistic, they don't spend enough and therefore that causes inflation to go down and our unemployment to go up. The thing I want you to notice is, normally we only get one bad flavor, either inflation
or unemployment. The thing that brings the Iran war together with tariffs is that what economists call a supply shock. In both cases, both of these shocks make it more difficult, more expensive for Americans to do business.
As a result, you end up getting higher inflation and because it's more difficult, more cost to do business, higher unemployment. So we get both bad flavors at the same time. So that's the thing I want folks to understand is actually a deep analytics similarity between these two, the bad part of this is not only do we get two bad flavors, the Fed can't
fix this because the Fed can either raise rates which will bring down inflation but raise unemployment or lower rates which will do the opposite. It can't fix it when two bad things are going on at the same time. There's one more thing I want to make sure we highlight here is these two supply shocks are the dominant shocks hitting the American and they do global economy right
Now.
So what everyone's talking about, they are both coming from inside the house.
“The White House that is, normally the art of economics is the world throws you curve”
balls and you try to get out of the way of them. This time we're throwing them at our own heads, these economic shocks that come directly from the White House and erasing both the cost of living and making it hot if effects to the business. Think about the global economy as the ocean and there are waves and tides and this is
why often economists say you really can't blame a specific president often if you happen to get that generational tsunami that happens. It's actually been building before then we do judge how the president reacts to that. What we're seeing now to play this metaphor further is dropping nuclear bomb in the middle of the ocean and then creating the tsunamis that are very predictable and then doing it
again and doing it again and then trying to blame the past administrations for the current actions and from a perspective of an economist very rarely have you seen and this is what you're saying so someone in office affirmatively manufacture the tsunami it often I don't mean natural in the sense of you know it develops the way and nature does but these things develop based on you know the human behavior and now it's actually happening because
the human behavior of a man is out there doing these deranged things with the most powerful
economy in the world. Absolutely and I'm just going to tell you it is an economist it hurts my heart. We're not meant to like first of all let me stick on your analytic point first. Your analytic point is for nine out of the last 10 presidency. So if you had me on and said just and how much should we blame the president for what's going on
with the economy right now I would have said exactly what you just said which is the president is just one factor of many the financial crisis wasn't you to one president and COVID wasn't you to one president the 1970s oil price shocks were not you to one president people in Washington tell 10 to tell two simple of a story that the bloke and the white house holds all the levers over
“the economy that's what I would have said nine out of 10 times this is the 10th time.”
The 10th time here is this is a bloke whose explicit policies there's literally no question about the cause of the current oil price spike it is that we decided to go to war in a run on an open-ended ill-defined mission and we're not quite sure what to do the Iranians took over the straight-of-a-moors and now the global economy is substantially fractured in global markets global energy markets are in disarray. No question what the cause of that was.
We know that because we actually saw things get a little bit better in June during the ceasefire but those happy days are behind us also no question at tariffs are a complete own goal that there've led to higher prices paid for by Americans and that I think explains why if you look right now compared to our trading partners the group of seven so compared to our peers the G7 which just think of these as other economies it kind of like if the US economy had mates this is
who they'd be comparable large industrialised economies the United States right now has higher inflation than any of them where number one but it's not one of those good number ones and let me just add it really does hurt my heart because we know how not to screw things up any economics textbook anyone has taken introductory economics would know that there are large economic costs to be paid as a result of going to war they would know that starting a global trade war without anyway
of in a chaotic and incoherent fashion is all downside no upside and so I'm going to end with a
“compliment here Ben that's what I love about minus touch which is we want to teach people economics”
and it folks out there really understand it a little better than you at home you're a whole lot smart in prison trump and hopefully we can avoid these painful mistakes in the future you know in science we talk about control groups and variable groups and very rarely have we had such a control and variable because you've seen for the brief period of time where there was an MOU what happened with inflation it was still year over year up significantly but we had a cooler
than expected reading because of the memorandum of understanding so as you go back to war the price is go up right away well I just want to how does a lawyer like you keep all these facts in your mind because I can keep the economic ones but then you're talking about all these other things all that I am I don't know how you do it my well I think that when it punches your audience and your community
in the face and you start to say I never wanted to be an expert in the 10 20 or 30 year
treasury note yields I never really I never wanted to know about these things perhaps I should have
I knew that I had people like Justin Wolfers out there you know who were in p...
government and in power who were looking I didn't have to when I go on an airplane I don't
go you know what I got to learn how to fly this airplane I expect that the captain you know was going to fly the airplane but what I increasingly feel right now and I know the community feels this way is that the people flying the airplane don't know how to fly the airplane so it does feel a bit existential I don't learn how to fly it if I don't know the 10 the 20 and the 30 year yields if I don't understand what's happening with oil and the difference between WTI and
Brent and this and that I worry that I don't that that's one of the problems with this regime is that in many ways it's made us more educated but it's because of the catastrophic and
“cataclysmic impact that's what yeah mate I think I prefer to tell a sunny a story so I'm”
going to give you the the upside which is this tool pass and at the end of this we're all going to be a lot smarter and I think that is actually going to be what saves American democracy and I think that's why we talk about generational projects here and in our book WTF America I say we've been around for six years the forces of disinformation 60 years so it's it's we out of play catch up and then we got to exceed before we go that I just want to drill down
quickly though on the specifics of these of the second 301 stuff because you have the
Trump regime now you know the the Supreme Court said you can't do these tariffs and they tried to do another version of tariffs you can't do that and so now they come up with these 301 investigations where they make these findings that are ridiculous you know can't an exploiting of this way and it's very unfair there Canada discrimination and then you're up in all these other countries now are engaged in forced labor which if you were concerned about
that maybe you wouldn't do nuclear enrichment deals with Saudi Arabia and then do give all our classified a semi-conductor technology to the United Arab Emirates you are a trouble maker my friend but look this is my chance to prove to my lawyer friend on now a bit
“of law here because what's going on he's actually really important to people understand it”
Ben's exactly right first set of tariffs liberation they tariffs unconstitutional get rid of them.
Second set maybe they were constitutional maybe they weren't it's still being litigated but if they were legal they were only legal for six months they had an automatic sunset that sunset was last night so now we're up to the third attempt to try to get tariffs and by the way there's a very easy way of doing this if tariffs were a good idea the Republican president could go to the Republican House and suggest to the Republican House they passed a tariff bill and then if
it was a good idea it would get through the Republican Senate you'll notice not once as the president done that he hasn't used either the House or Senate once it's that he wants control to be centralized with him and his White House and in fact the Republican House and Senate would not endorse what he's doing which means that the president's now rifling around the
“back of the couch trying to find a legal excuse that allows him to take these actions even when”
Congress doesn't want it and it turns out there's a way of saying oh the other side they're being unfair so I want to retaliate okay they found that rule now they need to find a way of saying how is it the rest of the world's being unfair to America what they've done is they've said well we in America and I love the president has discovered this he's like we in America we hate forced label we hate slavery we hate it when the the world's poor and downtrodden to repressed I mean I
love the hot spur of this guy but and he said so therefore we are going to put a tariff on anyone who can't prove that they don't use forced labor this is real countries like Australia and Canada and the United Kingdom and so these new tariffs they're not saying these countries do those things they're saying those countries can't certify that every single thing that they can assume didn't come from a country that uses forced labor and as a result we American workers
who could be selling stuff to your country they might be competing with forced labor from some other country instead so the president pretends he cares about forced labor and puts a tariff of 10 to 12 and a half percent on each of these different countries so you're going to hear this call the forced labor tariff but it's not one more thing the president has said time and again that what he wants is tariffs because he wants to do deals this power doesn't let him do that you'll
notice he's put effectively the same tariff on every country in the world effectively the same tariff on every industry he can't call the leader of China and say do a deal with me and I'll drop these tariffs because China is as bad on this issue according to this investigation is every other country so these give him his tariffs but they don't give him what he wanted to use the tariffs for which is bargaining power so if you thought trump tariffs pot one was dumb this is dama this
Gets a still all the cost of tariffs but almost none of the benefits or Donal...
gets benefits because he feels tough and then he says he dangles it over their head and I don't know
“seems like a trump business from the past that went bankrupt and were all non-consensual shareholders”
sadly in this in this thing but I'll end it on your positive note and take your up this two shall
pass and I do think though I agree with you and this is fundamentally what we talk about is that
“we need to get out of this loop we're in a we're in a bad loop of you know this leader to that”
leader this leader blame blame you know and then it just it doesn't work this this back and forth
seesaw is not working for the economy for the country and so there really has to be a generation allowed look of we we we have to aspire to something better and deeper and more firmly rooted
“the truth that's what we're going to be doing our best or small part to build and I know you're”
doing that over in platypus so everybody subscribe to platypus economics on YouTube as soon as this video ends on YouTube search platypus economics Justin has new videos every day you can also see the hits that he does on the various news networks that he posts there and then in the comments tell Justin that Ben sent you and that Ben says hello thanks just love you mate everybody hit subscribe want to stay plugged in become a subscribers for a sub stack at mightestplus.com
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