10 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. NYTimes' Columnist David Brooks on Wharton School's Class Dunce tariff policies:

   Producing Something This Stupid Is the Achievement of a Lifetime

   What happens when people lose the ability to reason or render good judgments? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Donald Trump’s tariff policy. I’ve covered a lot of policies over the decades, some of which I supported and some of which I opposed. But I have never seen a policy as stupid as this one. It is based on false assumptions. It rests on no coherent argument in its favor. It relies on no empirical evidence. It has almost no experts on its side — from left, right or center. It is jumble-headedness exemplified. Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature — self-satisfaction, an inability to recognize the flaws in your thinking. And of course when the approach led to absolutely predictable mayhem, Trump, lacking any coherent plan, backtracked, flip-flopped, responding impulsively to the pressures of the moment as his team struggled to keep up.

   Producing something this stupid is not the work of a day; it is the achievement of a lifetime — relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence.

   I recall chatter about George W. Bush's questionable academic record (filled with "Gentleman's Cs".  Trump's threat to sue if his school transcripts are released speaks volumes about his fear of being humiliated.

   Log in to Reply

   1. David Brooks' larger point … we have an entire country pursuing the "ignorance is bliss" nirvana.  He writes a standard that makes me begin to wonder about my own practice:

      … you have to train your own mind, especially by reading and writing. As Johann Hari wrote in his book “Stolen Focus,” “The world is complex and requires steady focus to be understood; it needs to be thought about and comprehended slowly.” Reading a book puts you inside another person’s mind in a way that a Facebook post just doesn’t. Writing is the discipline that teaches you to take a jumble of thoughts and cohere them into a compelling point of view.

      How many books have I read in the past year?  How much writing beyond a quick comment or slapped together post? 

       

      Log in to Reply

      1. Kurt Cobain wouldn't approve.

         Log in to Reply

         1. I'm not so sure. He felt stupid and contagious!

             

            Log in to Reply

2. Well, one of his Wharton profs said “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.” That seems plain enough, guessing the transcripts couldn't be very flattering.

   Log in to Reply

3. Proposed Colorado Energy Legislation

   Following the disastrous approach of Germany & Australia

   It also has a link to a free copy of my book for any that are interested.

   Log in to Reply

4. We already have an unqualified SecDef (SecDUI?) and now we have an unqualified Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

   Because having a family member pick a fellow investment Bro with a lame fighter pilot name is always the best way to choose the top military leader of DoD. 

   Trump's Unusual Pick for Joint Chiefs Chairman Approved by Senate in Overnight Vote

   Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, who President Donald Trump plucked out of retirement to replace the Black general he fired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been confirmed by the Senate to become the nation's top general.

   In the predawn hours Friday morning, the Senate voted 60-25 to approve Caine to get a fourth star and become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

   The approval will make Caine, who required a presidential waiver to bypass the statutory qualifications for the job, the first chairman who has not previously been a four-star general or admiral.

   Since his retirement last year, Caine has been a partner at several venture capital firms. One of the firms he was a partner at, Thrive Capital, is run by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and onetime adviser.

   Caine was not questioned about his business ties during his confirmation hearing.

   https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/04/11/trumps-unusual-pick-joint-chiefs-chairman-approved-senate-overnight-vote.html

   Log in to Reply

5. You know how we all assumed that the titans of Wall St, the super rich, and the CEOs of the Fortune 100 ran this country?

   Well Trump is definitely disproving that hypothesis.

   This is just amazing that we set up our system so a single individual who knows noting of markets or economics can destroy our economy and re-arrange the world's sconomic and security system based on his simplistic nonesense.

   It's going to get worse. A lot worse.

   Log in to Reply

6. Agreements? Hmmm. Makes Ya Wonder. Josh Marshall at TPM

   Why Aren’t We Seeing Any of These ‘Agreements’?

   Here’s one thing that’s hardly been discussed as far as I can tell. We know about the Trump “deals” with various law firms. We know about the “deal” with Columbia University, which the administration has now violated to the extent it was ever actually a deal. But where are these deals? What are they exactly? I mean, have these agreements been committed to paper? In every one of these that I have seen each side has a general description of what’s been agreed to but there’s no document that you would have in the real world – or the real non-corrupt world – when two parties agree to something.

   Another important question: Who are the parties to the agreements? Are they with the government of the United States or Donald Trump? I think it must be the latter since I’m not sure how you would legally structure such agreements. But that’s another matter. Where are the agreements? Why can’t we see them?

   Log in to Reply

7. Because they're invisible, viewable only those with a cigarette

   lighter, an item rarely carried by Godless Commies.

   Log in to Reply