PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on THE ECONOMY and OTHER MATTERS

 President Donald Trump said this weekend:

• Is not joking about a third term.  Which is better for the U.S. than he unilaterally just becoming a dictator.

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  Will absolutely deliver on his massive reciprocal tariff plan on April 2.  He dubs it Liberation Day.

• 
  Reasserted that the U.S. would 100% annex Greenland.
• Will ban refugees....except for White South Africans.  Guess from where comes Elon Musk?  If so, how many refugees has so far expressed interest?  67,000.

• 
  Will approve Canadian firm, The Metals Company, to mine the deep seabed, circumventing international law, drawing denouncement from 40 countries.

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  Lethargic help to Myanmar recovering from the damage caused by a 7.7 earthquake.  USAID cuts reduces our ability to provide assistance worldwide.

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  Very angry and pissed off at Vladimir Putin for continuing the Ukraine-Russia War, a first for Trump, who has been giving the Ukraine house away.

From the New York Times this morning:

How much has DOGE pared back so far? Federal spending is actually higher this year than it was at this point in 2024, according to the Hamilton Project.

Where did this money go last year?

Trump has ruled out cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military. Along with interest payments, that’s about 70 percent of what the government spends.  All of the other programs you hear about (schools, welfare payments, foreign aid, medical research) make up roughly 30 percent of the federal budget. Trump would have to eliminate all of those to balance the budget without touching the programs he has deemed untouchable.

Trump and Musk claim they can eliminate most of the deficit by downsizing the federal work force — the Times is tracking the firings here — and ending waste and fraud. This is the work DOGE says it’s doing. But these efforts, too, are likely to fall short.

Presidents and Congress have launched many initiatives over the past few decades to tackle waste and fraud. They did not find significant savings. Watchdogs also track improper payments, which include fraud, duplicate charges and payments to ineligible recipients. These made up $149 billion in the most recent fiscal year. Even if DOGE managed to root out all of these payments — a difficult task for many technical reasons, The Wall Street Journal reported — it would shrink the deficit by only 8 percent.

Similarly, shrinking the federal work force can do only so much. Even if Musk managed to fire every civilian employee and cut their benefits — an outlandish scenario — he would reduce the deficit by just 14 percent.

Or, using fiscal year 2022 as an example.

Some layoffs could even increase the deficit. The Biden administration wanted to hire more workers at the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on tax cheats. Experts said the plan would bring in $2.5 in tax revenue for every $1 spent. Trump wants to get rid of the new employees anyway.

In the end, the debt problem remains what it has long been: Republicans and Democrats refuse to cut popular but expensive federal programs and don’t want to raise taxes on most Americans. As long as that’s true, the federal government will remain in the red.

Also from the New York Times:

There is also that national debt problem.

Mind you, he is not sweating what the masses think about his foibles, for this is all relative.

In the Economist/YouGov poll, Trump's favorability stood at 48% versus 49% unfavorable. Meanwhile Vice President JD Vance's favorability polled at 43% versus 46% unfavorable and House Speaker Mike Johnson had a 30% favorability versus 37% unfavourability.  This poll included approval ratings on some high profile Democrats as well, such as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer with a 24% favorability compared to a whopping 50% unfavourability.

Plus:

The national NBC News poll shows Trump's approval rating at 47% with more registered voters seeing the US as heading in the right direction than at any point since early 2004.

Similarly:

RealClear Polling which encompasses 13 different pollsters, including those mentioned above, shows Trump's overall favorability at 47.9% versus 49.3% that disapprove, as of today.

However, what about Trump's job approval rating relative to other presidents and his first term?

• He was terrible in his first term.
• So he is actually looking better this second time....but still negative.  
• ALL OTHER RECENT PRESIDENTS WERE VERY POSITIVE!!!

Oh, one more economy measure, the non-partisan stock market,  The S&P 500 rose today, but suffered its worst quarter since 2022.  Future?  Looks worse, for tonight.

 Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Averagefell by 86 points, or 0.2%. S&P 500 futures

 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.

Oh, one more indicator, product prices, what killed Kamala Harris in the presidential election.

• Gold today rose to a record high of $3,128.06/ounce.  This historically means that the stock market will continue to drop.  In other words, big investors go into gold or bonds if stocks show danger.

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  Coffee prices are also at all-time highs.  Wholesale arabica coffee broke a previous record of $4.30/pound, DOUBLE what it was a year ago.  The average price of ground roast coffee rose to a highest ever, $7.25/pound.
• Eggflation is continuing.  I shopped for eggs this weekend, and found a dozen for half the price of a month ago, but still double what it once was.

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