Follow the Money

Who does Trump work for? Not you.

NOTE:

Some of my commentators and coffee buyers remarked on my “ranting” about Trump. It was a good observation — because I have been ranting, which can be fun at first, but can become tiresome if it is just emotional venting I apologize if I seemed that way.

I need to work harder .

Of course if you can’t get emotional about Donald Trump, it calls into question what you can be emotional about?

Do I focus too much on Trump?

There are lots of other things in the news such as the Ukraine, ZioNazi genocide, possible war in West Asia, freedom of speech and law enforcement issues in the US - but inevitably it all comes back to the Donald—and the decline and fall of the American Empire.

Who does Trump work for? Not you.

Is Trump facing down Big Business and Big Government and foreign exploitations to stand up for the “little guy”, reducing inequality, and delivering economic justice with tariffs?

Some think so.

This is a long-overdue shift away from a harmful economic framework that has devastated the working class and driven a race to the bottom across borders….a return to policies that prioritize the workers who build this country—rather than the greed of ruthless corporations. TThe UAW

The UAW of course is talking specifically about autoworkers — but also more generally about the entire working class — the “workers who built this country”— even before there was an auto industry.

When tariffs were first announced some people pointed to losses among the rich as proof.

Trump's New Tariffs Shrink World's Richest People's Wealth by $208 Billion — Bloomberg

The biggest losers were:

▪️Mark Zuckerberg – $17.9 billion (Meta 9%);

▪️Jeff Bezos – $15.9 billion (Amazon 9%);

▪️Elon Musk - $11 billion (Tesla 5.5%);

OK — so it would seem that Trump is standing up for the “little guy”, reducing inequality.

But….then Trump suddenly postponed the tariffs except for a 10% tax on most imports for everyone but China.

Ummmm…”follow the money”.

The wealth of the world's richest people increased by a record $304 billion after the US tariffs were postponed, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

Elon Musk made the most money from the growth in stock prices. His capital increased by $36 billion (TASS)

Musk ended up making a profit of $25 billion.

Cui Bono?

As in all things political or corporate — or criminal — which includes political or corporate — it’s all about money— and power.

China was not penalized for economic retaliation, Trump said- -but “for lack of “respect”.

Power, hegemony. Scape goating.

You gotta have someone to blame and China has been designated as the Big Bad, which means when the American public begins hurting they will target the Chinese, and not Elon or Jeff or Mark.

That said, we are not yet in a full trade war.

It might be all theater. In the end, however, the poor get poorer while the rich get richer.

At this point, estimates of the costs to average households vary hugely from an increase of about $1000 over last year’s inflationary increase to as much as $8000 according to Yale’s Budget Labs.

Naturally the US government goes for lower figures.

I did a general internet search about CPI projections which yielded a lot of controversy. Estimates of the costs to average households vary hugely from an increase of about $1000 over last year’s inflationary increase to as much as $8000 according to Yale’s Budget Labs.

Naturally the US government goes for lower figures.

I realized I would have to dig.

So, I used not one - but three LLMs — DeepSeek, GPT and Grok. The first two LLMs were inconclusive. Probably because my questions were bad.

By the time I got to Grok, I had refined my question sets and got a better answers

I won’t bore you with Grok’s analysis, although you can get the same analysis by just inputting my starter question, which was:

What will is the projected increase of the CPI increase from now until 2027 if the projected tariffs of 124% and also retaliatory Chinese tariffs and blocks of exports of strategic materials remain in place to 2027 and beyond?

The “Final Answer”?

The projected CPI increase from April 2025 to 2027, with 124% tariffs on Chinese imports and Chinese retaliatory tariffs and export blocks in place, is approximately 13-18%, leading to a CPI of roughly 350-370 by 2027.

Yup, the “little guy suffers”.

In addition, there is the chance of a major recession, and economic collapse.

But Trump’s billionaires bros will not hurt— as we have seen.

Yes, things in Japan are getting expensive! Tariff shock is biting here. So please buy Chappy and Ichi and I coffee so I can keep on writing. Click HERE. We need your support.