kscarbel2

87 octane averages $2.99 around me. Gasoline can't fall much lower than that. Both Biden and President Trump harped on lowering gasoline pump prices. But it can't get much lower or the oil companies aren't making any money.

The Democrats couldn't possibly believe what they're saying. These are intelligent people. Rather, it's as though they are reading from a script. They are controlled.

The stock market selloff deepened, bonds pared gains and oil hit a four-year low, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell today reiterating the central bank’s wait-and-see approach. Powell said the economic damage of a trade war will be bigger than anticipated.

In short, he in one sense went too far. In another sense, he has not spoken clearly. The idea is right, but the execution is wrong. Apparently, he's listening to the wrong advisors (Lutnick, Navarro) rather than the right ones (JD Vance, Suzie Wiles and Scott Bessent).

Why don't we ever see the names of great American leaders like John Kennedy on presidential ballots? Apparently, they are not permitted to run.

Stagflation, the s-word rippling through Wall Street and Main Street, is a calamitous anomaly whereby the economy manifests low growth and high inflation at the same time. Anyone who remembers the 1970s will recall that it caused an economic crisis in the United States, ushering in a turbulent era of high prices, interest rates and unemployment — and considerable instability and pain. Stagflation unraveled two presidencies, Ford’s and Carter’s, and nearly destroyed Reagan’s. Today, experts are worried that the new tariff regime, which is all but certain to raise prices, coupled with a tight labor market could return us to that era. “The data is continuing to support the narrative of weaker growth and higher inflation, with market-based inflation expectations continuing to rise,” says Deutsche Bank.

She bluntly pegs it in that video.

China’s finance ministry on Friday announced it would impose an additional 34% levy on U.S. goods beginning April 10. This week the U.S. announced an import tariff of 34% on China, which comes on top of the 20% tariff on those imports that the second Trump administration had already put into effect. The net result is a 54% duty on goods from China.

Legendary investor and PIMCO co-founder Bill Gross says investors should not try to buy the dip after the worst stock-market drop since the pandemic. “This is an epic economic and market event similar to 1971 and the end of the gold standard except with immediate negative consequences,” says Gross.

As a result of President Trump’s tariff scheme, JPMorgan’s economics team has just raised their recession probability to 60 percent. In a note entitled, “there will be blood,” chief economist Bruce Kasman and his team said this year’s 22-percentage tariff increase amounts to the largest tax hike since 1968.

“Consider Europe’s VAT regime [Value-Added Tax money grab]. A German automaker exporting a car to the U.S. does so tax-free — thanks to a VAT rebate. An American automaker shipping a car to Europe pays embedded U.S. taxes and a European VAT upon entry. One enjoys a de facto export subsidy. The other faces a tax wall. The WTO, in its infinite wisdom, allows this disparity and has repeatedly blocked American attempts to address it through legal or tax-code innovations. The Foreign Sales Corporation regime? Illegal. Domestic International Sales Corporations? Illegal. Export tax incentives? Illegal.” President Trump

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/04/03/watch-nancy-pelosi-in-1996-assails-u-s-free-trade-with-china-is-this-reciprocal/

The chassis is a Ford Transit. So imagine that the powertrain module is under that front hood.

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“First of all, that report I saw was total fake news. We said that's going to take about six months and that's what Elon signed up for, but of course he's going to continue to be an advisor. The work of DOGE is not even close to done, the work of Elon is not even close to done. DOGE has got a lot of work to do, and that work is going to continue after Elon leaves but fundamentally Elon is going to remain a friend and advisor of both me and the president and he's done a lot of good things.” Vice President JD Vance

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advises other countries to “Sit back, take a deep breath, don't immediately retaliate. Let's see where this goes, because if you retaliate, that's how we get escalation. Doing anything rash would be unwise. A trade war depends on the country. But remember that the history of trade is we are the deficit country. The deficit country has an advantage. They are the surplus countries. The surplus countries traditionally, always lose any kind of trade escalation. As a student of economic history or a professor of economic history, I'd advise against trying to get revenge.”

“So for 40 years, America has been the piggy bank of the world. We absorb all of the ridiculous trade practices and economic practices of friend and foe alike. For the first time in probably 40 years, we have an American president who’s saying, ‘No more,’ that it’s not going to work, that he’s not going to allow America to be taken advantage of anymore. This decision is going to cause incredible benefits for American workers. You’ve already seen a number of American manufacturers and a number of foreign manufacturers who are saying they’re going to build or expand plants in America. That means more workers with good middle-class jobs. That means more self-sufficiency in the United States of America. Again, it can’t happen unless you have a president who fights back against these ridiculous trade practices. Finally, we have a president who’s doing exactly that.” “It’s funny. You have countries who threaten to retaliate against President Trump standing up for American workers. And my response is, well, if tariffs are so terrible, then isn’t them raising their tariffs good for us? Because these people always say that any tariffs are bad. Well, all these other countries have applied tariffs to the United States and non-tariff barriers to the United States for a generation. If it was so terrible, why do these countries keep on doing it? If it’s so terrible, why are these countries calling us, lobbying us, begging us not to do this thing? It just doesn’t make any sense. What we know from experience is that a lot of countries have gotten rich by using the United States as a piggy bank. We know that President Trump stopping this makes these countries nervous, and the reason it makes them nervous is because they know what common sense tells us, which is that when they impose tariffs on us, it’s bad for American workers, and when we fight back, it’s good for American workers.” “Yeah, in a word, it’s nationalism. In our foreign policy and our economic policy, we have a president who’s going to put the interests of Americans first and that means in our economic policy, we’re going to fight back against ridiculous trade practices. In our foreign policy, we’re going to stop starting stupid wars. But we’re also going to ensure that America’s enemies respect America’s national interests and that means we need access to critical resources. That means that we need our allies and ourselves to have missile security, to have national security, to make our own weapons if God forbid a war would start. And so, these things are often connected. Economic security is connected to national security because, if God forbid, we had to go to war, we want our troops to go to war with the best equipment and equipment that’s made in the United States of America. The president mentioned this in his remarks today: that we’re in a situation where if we went to war against a country that made our pharmaceuticals, our kids wouldn’t have access to antibiotics. So this basic understanding of President Trump’s, which I think is very much common sense and I think most Americans get, is that we need to have more self-sufficiency. We need to make more of our own stuff. We need a foreign policy that puts the interest of our citizens first, and we need an economic policy that does the same.” Vice President JD Vance

A federal judge, born in Mexico and appointed by Biden, has blocked President Trump from defunding free lawyers for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs). In February, the Trump administration paused funding for the Acacia Center for Justice — a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides free lawyers to tens of thousands of UACs hoping to stay in the United States using millions in American taxpayer dollars. During the Biden administration, the Acacia Center for Justice secured $200 million in federal contracts to provide lawyers to UACs. Late on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez Olguin, who was born in Mexico City and appointed by Biden, became the latest federal judge to block President Trump from carrying out his “America First” agenda.

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