Another Reason to Hate Donald Trump

Because in response to his bullying tactics, he he makes Ontario Premier Doug Ford sound like a hero, rather than the right wing bowling ball in a jacket that he is.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is slamming Donald Trump as a “loser” and the “king of bankruptcies” after the U.S. president criticized him on social media on Monday afternoon.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump referred to Ford by name as “the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford.”

The post came hours after an interview with The Morning Rush with Bill Carroll in Ottawa, in which Ford said that Trump could “kiss my ass.”

At a news conference in Hamilton on Monday afternoon, Ford initially said that he wouldn’t respond to a “dictator” and “bully” like Trump before going on a prolonged rant about the U.S. president.

Ford also doubled down on his earlier remarks, saying “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so he has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”

“I am not going to take any advice off a guy that is the king of bankruptcies and he is actually tariffing his own people, taxing his own people,” Ford said of Trump. “I am going to be reaching out to every single governor, every single senator, every single congressperson and when it comes to the (U.S.) midterms I have a message to the Americans: don’t vote in a person that is going to kill your jobs.”

………

Ford’s news conference in Hamilton was held to announce an expansion of an existing program to support workers and businesses impacted by the trade war.

However, it unfolded just moments after Trump’s Truth Social post.

At one point during the news conference Ford addressed the U.S. president directly: “Your own people, President Trump, don’t even like you,” he said.

He then predicted that Americans would “speak loud and clear” during the upcoming midterm elections and offered that he would be “door-knocking” himself if he could.

When asked about the personal nature of Trump’s criticism, Ford said “bring it on.”

………

Ford’s comments on Monday come after Trump threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian vehicles by 2027.

Speaking with reporters, Ford said he believes “everything should be on the table” amid the renewed trade war with the U.S., including a surcharge on electricity exports that Ontario introduced and then scrapped earlier in the trade war.

………

“I cannot speak for other premiers but a couple premiers have a lot of power to protect Canada, massive power,” Ford said. “Everyone needs to be on team Canada and throw everything and the kitchen sink at them (the U.S.) no matter if it is electricity, if it is fuel, potash or uranium. We need to have everything on the table. But we need a buy-in from cost to coast.”

Note that the threat to end /surcharge cheap hydro-electricity exports to the US is a big deal, and given this year's record El Niño, it's likely that this won't result in potential sales being literally flushed down river.  

I'm nodding in approval, and I don't want to be nodding in approval. 

Guck Favin

It looks like everyone's favorite political tweeter, and political sh%$-heel, Gavin Newsom is pulling out all the stops to kill California's billionaire tax.

F%$# him with Cheney's dick. 

Governor Gavin Newsom is mounting a last-ditch pressure campaign to stop a proposed California billionaire tax from ever reaching voters.

During a call last month, he assured a major Democratic donor the levy would be successfully negotiated away before a June 25 deadline, a person familiar with the call said, asking not to be named discussing a private conversation.

………

Now Newsom has less than two weeks to make good on his promise and convince the group behind the measure to withdraw its proposal, averting a costly showdown in the November general election. A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment on the call.

The proposal, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on a billionaire’s net worth, has become one of the most closely watched political fights in California, exposing divisions within the Democratic Party and serving as a test of the broader appetite in the US for taxing extreme wealth.

Powerful new allies recently joined Newsom’s crusade. Groups like the California branch of Planned Parenthood and the state’s largest teachers’ union now publicly oppose the tax.

Together, they’ve formed an unlikely bloc against the levy: Newsom and progressive groups as well as Democratic and Republican mega-donors, like Peter Thiel and Sergey Brin.

For SEIU-UHW, the healthcare union that proposed the measure, and its leader, Dave Regan, the growing opposition means the campaign is no longer just taking on billionaires. It is also going up against groups representing teachers and carpenters, as well as Democratic stalwarts.

They are all screaming that the billionaires will move to Texas and Florida to avoid taxes.

After a year, said billionaires will learn realize that THEY ARE LIVING IN FLORIDA OR TEXAS, and they will want to return to a place that is not a f%$#ing snake pit.

The taxes raised are not that important.  What is important is giving the billionaires in general, and the Tech Bros in particular, a loss. 

Gee, Imagine That

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a "millionaires tax" is generating far more revenue than anticipated.

Gee, who could have seen that coming? 

Billionaires tax is more like it.

The state’s surtax on its highest earners has already generated more than $3.1 billion in revenue this fiscal year, with still two months to be counted, likely leaving lawmakers with a generous surplus to dole out next spring.

The amount, disclosed in a letter released by the state Department of Revenue, already tops the $3 billion the state collected from the so-called millionaires tax during fiscal year 2025. It also far surpasses the $2.4 billion the state projected to spend from the levy in the fiscal year that ends next month.

The constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2022 applies a 4 percent surtax on annual income “in excess” of $1 million. But the measure also included a trigger linking that seven-figure threshold to any changes in the cost of living, meaning the amount someone has to earn to hit the tax increases with inflation. For tax year 2026, for example, only income over $1.1 million is now taxed.

Before the measure passed on the ballot, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning think tank, projected it could generate at least $2 billion a year.

It’s repeatedly topped that. Around this time last fiscal year, the surtax had already produced $2.6 billion in revenue. The year before, it had produced about $1.8 billion by around this time.

The estimates immediately buoyed supporters’ claims that the surtax would deliver much-needed revenue for the state despite fears it could drive some of the state’s wealthiest residents to move to locales with lower tax burdens.

Yeah, they always say that, and it doesn't really ever happen.

Of Course They Will

Trump has chickened out over the slush fund, but the order giving Trump and his family a free pass on tax fraud will remain.

I'm wondering if this was the real goal all along. 

The Justice Department is standing by an extraordinary measure giving President Trump, his family and his businesses potentially lucrative protection from I.R.S. investigations, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said on Tuesday.

Mr. Blanche’s remarks about the tax protections came during an appearance in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee, in which he told lawmakers that the Trump administration was abandoning a related plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay restitution to people who claimed they were victims of government “weaponization.”

Mr. Blanche said the end of the fund would not affect the separate agreement shielding Mr. Trump from audits of tax returns he and his family had already filed. Both proposals had emerged in recent weeks as part of a settlement of Mr. Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. But now only the measure benefiting the Trumps will survive, Mr. Blanche said.

“Nothing has changed with that,” he said, referring to the tax proposal. “We’re not moving forward with the anti-weaponization fund.”

Mr. Blanche’s directive left in place a staggering public benefit to a president who has sought to bend the government toward his own financial interests. A host of thorny legal questions also remain. Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S. was revived last week by a judge concerned about potential deception in the agreement to withdraw the suit and to release the Trumps from any ongoing audits.

These protections could be immensely valuable to Mr. Trump and his family, who have faced repeated audits from the Internal Revenue Service. Just one investigation by the I.R.S. stemmed in part from how Mr. Trump claimed losses on his Chicago tower could have cost him more than $100 million, The New York Times has reported. The Trump Organization had recently entered settlement talks with the I.R.S. to try to resolve the audit, The Times previously reported.

Tax lawyers and former I.R.S. officials have said that the protection for Mr. Trump was unprecedented in its scope and form, particularly since it extends to “affiliates” of the Trumps. Pre-existing I.R.S. procedure has been to audit the president every year, rather than confer on him sweeping protection from scrutiny on tax returns already filed.

 

Good Idea

And it is from Gavin Newsom of all people.

California is proposing extending its sales tax to cloud based software, rather than limiting it just to shrink wrapped software sold in stores.

I like this, not the least because it ends what was an effective subsidy to the cloud in the Golden State. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his latest budget plan on Thursday, totaling $349.4 billion, the largest in the state’s history. The proposal includes a new 7.25% state sales tax on cloud-based software.

Currently, sales tax is only paid on software purchased in physical form, whether that’s through software sold as part of a new hardware purchase or tangible media. Cloud-based software and software as a service (SaaS) applications aren’t taxed in the same way, but Newsom’s proposal would change that.

As KCRA notes, the new tax would apply to software like Microsoft Office, Adobe, and QuickBooks, as well as Slack and Workday. Roughly half of the states currently tax SaaS products, and Newsom argues it would just mean bringing California in line with dozens of other states.

 

Parasite

Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust has declared that calling for taxing the rich is hate speech.

So, paying the costs of the society that makes your obscene wealth is evil. 

Steven Roth, the chief executive of Vornado Realty Trust, used an earnings call on Tuesday to castigate Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York for his “tax-the-rich” rhetoric, which he likened to a racial slur or a pro-Palestinian rallying cry.

“I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ — quote, tax the rich — when spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs and even the phrase, ‘from the river to the sea,’” Mr. Roth said, referring to the pro-Palestinian phrase that some Jews believe amounts to a call for ethnic cleansing.

You were born on 3rd base and believed that you have hit a triple. 

You are a worthless person, and the world would be better without you. 

Headline of the Day

The Federalist Is Super Mad Virginia Will No Longer Subsidize Racists

—Techdirt

I've written about the elimination of funding to neo-Confederate organizations in Virginia, but this is as succinct a description of how the racists in the Federalist Society have responded.

How is This a Bad Thing?

America's lamest newspaper, the New York Times, just bleated their worry that new taxes on ultra expensive 2nd homes might make living in New York more affordable.

The hed reads, "New Taxes Helped Cool London’s Housing Market.Could That Happen in New York?"

That implies that this might help ordinary people looking to live in the city.

The rest of the article is hand wringing about the possibility that this tax might result in losses for the ultra-rich and real estate developers.

To quote Emilio Estevez from the movie Repo Man, "F%$# that."

When these folks win, everyone else loses.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan for a yearly surcharge on second homes in New York City worth $5 million or more could be an elegant political move — one that taxes the rich who don’t live in the city full-time.

If approved, the so-called pied-à-terre tax will be a populist win that avoids levying new taxes on constituents of Ms. Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York.

But real estate agents and economists say the tax could be catastrophic for the city’s housing market, hurting not the superrich investors who park their money here, but the very middle- and lower-income citizens it’s designed to benefit.

As to how this would hurt the, "Very middle- and lower-income citizens it’s designed to benefit?"

Crickets. 

The moneybags who, "Have historically made up nearly half of the homeowners in prime London neighborhoods," did not make those neighborhoods more affordable, they made them less affordable.

There is a mention of billionaires leaving London, and that some of said billionaires threw pocket change at charities.

They further claim that, "Smaller landlords threw in the towel, taking tens of thousands of apartments off the market and constricting supply."

Which means that these titans of industry are going on an Ayn Rand style, "Capital Strike," which has never happened in history. 

More of This

Providing subsidies in the form of tax breaks to groups that support the Confederacy is bad policy and bad politics. 

New Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger has signed into law a bill that removes tax exemptions from the Daughters of the Confederacy and other Neo-confederate groups.

About f%$#ing time:

On Monday, Virginia’s governor, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat and the state’s first female governor, signed into law a bill that eliminates tax exemptions for organizations connected to the Confederacy.

HB167, passed by Democrats in the Virginia house and senate, specifically removes the Virginia division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, along with other groups, from the state’s list of organizations that are exempt from state property taxes.

Founded in 1894, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a non-profit with chapters in states including California, Kentucky, South Carolina and others. The organization is largely responsible for the proliferation of Confederate statues and monuments across the country after the US civil war. According to tax filings published by ProPublica, the group raised more than $2.1m in revenue, had more than $1.1m in expenses and possessed $15.8m in assets in 2025.

………

Still, Virginia lawmakers are pushing ahead with their efforts. Last week, Spanberger signed into law a different bill that discontinues speciality license plates that feature Robert E Lee and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. She also sent a bill that would establish a taskforce at the Virginia Military Institute to, among other things, recommend ways for the college to distance itself from sanitized narratives about the Confederacy back to the assembly with recommendations.

In many ways, this is more important than removing the statues, because this ends a direct state subsidy to an ideology that supports slavery and insurrection.

Econ 101, if you pay for it, people will make it.

Stop paying for Confederate apologists. 

No Posting Tonight

Job interview tomorrow.

Also, taxes. 

Headline of the Day

Judge: IRS broke law ‘approximately 42,695 times’ in giving DHS data

—The Washington Post

That is both a very large and a very precise number. 

Tariff-Ic!

You've probably heard the news already, but in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump does not have the power to unilaterally enact taxes, in particular tariffs.

Trump is saying that he will be using alternate laws to continue this, but given the Supreme Court ruling, it is likely that federal courts will enjoin this, and the Supreme Court is far less likely use the shadow docket to allow those policies to continue until a full court decision is made.

Any further efforts by the Trump administration to do this is likely to run afoul of the , "Bull Durham Rule," which states that the quickest way to get thrown out of a game is to call the umpire a c%$#-sucker.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, a major setback for his administration’s second-term agenda.

The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers.

The three dissenters, Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, had to bend themselves into knots to ignore Congress' plenary powers over taxation, but that is the norm for those corrupt bastards.

Mr. Trump is the first president to claim that a 1970s emergency statute, which does not mention the word “tariffs,” allowed him to unilaterally impose the duties without congressional approval.

He is the first, because his legal justification is complete bullsh%$.

………

The decision on Friday left uncertain the extent to which those who paid tariffs might be able to obtain refunds, with Justice Kavanaugh warning that any refund process could be a substantial “mess.”

The United States “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid” the tariffs, he wrote, “even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

That is an issue that falls firmly in the category of, "Not the Supreme Court's problem."

It will be interesting to see what cockamamie legal argument the Trump administration will put out next. 

^*Not my bon mot. DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS came up with it.

Good Riddance, Motherfuckers

It looks likely that a wealth tax is probably heading to the ballot in California, and once again, rich psychopaths are threatening to leave it it passes.

When one looks at the effects of the billionaire class on a society.

If they stay, they pay the tax.

If they leave, they are no longer a feature of California politics, and their colossal compounds will be subdivided and occupied by mere centimillionaires, and their former properties will be subdivided  and occupied by mere decimillionaires, and so on down the line, freeing up scarce housing resources for the ordinary people.

Billionaires are a drain on society, not an asset, and their wealth is used to bid up nedcessities like housing for the rest of us.

Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking.

Mr. Thiel, 58, who owns a home in the Hollywood Hills and operates a personal investment firm from Los Angeles, has explored opening an office for that firm, Thiel Capital, in another state and spending more time outside California, three of the people said.

Other billionaires who appear to be making moves to decrease their presence in California include Mr. Page, 52, a longtime resident of Palo Alto. He has discussed leaving the state by the end of the year, according to two people briefed on the talks. In mid-December, three limited liability companies associated with Mr. Page filed documents to incorporate in Florida, according to state records.

The moves are being driven by a potential California ballot measure from the health care union, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the people said. The proposal calls for California residents worth more than $1 billion to be taxed the equivalent of 5 percent of their assets.

Not good enough.  You need to start lower down, ½% of $100,000,000.00, and stepping up by ½% for every additional centibuck in value.you get to 5% at a billion.

Also don't plateau until you get to $10 billion (10%), at least. 

It would be only be on the amount above the line, as it works in income tax, so if one is worth $100,000,200.00, you would be charged $1.00 in taxes.

To quote Br'er Rabbit, "Don't throw me in that briar patch!" 

 

 

I Hate This

I filled for a 6 month income tax extension so we would not have a frantic rush to finish or taxes.

So here we are, 6 months later, on a frantic rush to get our taxes done. 

Sucks.

On the bright side, we will be getting a bit of a refund.

Taylor Swift Tax?

That is one FUGLY house Rhode Island has instituted a property tax surcharge on lavish vacation homes, called, the, "Taylor Swift Tax," because it was inspired by the singers purchase of a facation home in Watch Hill, RI for $17,000,000.00 in 2013.

This is a very good idea. 

A new push by states to tax the real estate of the wealthy has sparked a backlash among brokers and potential buyers, who say the taxes punish the most important local spenders.

From tax hikes on pricey second homes in Rhode Island and Montana to Cape Cod's proposed transfer tax on homes over $2 million and the L.A. mansion tax, state and local governments see a revenue gold mine in the pricey properties of the wealthy.

"It's a smack in the face to people who just spend money here," said Donna Krueger-Simmons, sales agent with Mott & Chace Sotheby's International in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

It's a WELL DESERVED smack in the face, Ms. Krueger-Simmons.  Just because your job is to sell overpriced houses to people who have too much money does not mean that the rest of us have to suffer for it.

………

Rhode Island's new levy, nicknamed "The Taylor Swift Tax," is among the most extreme. The popstar bought a beach house in the state's elite Watch Hill community in 2013.

The measure imposes a new surcharge on second homes valued at more than $1 million. For non-primary residences, or those not occupied for more than 182 days a year, the state will charge $2.50 for every $500 in assessed value above the first $1 million. That charge is on top of existing property taxes and will add up to big increases for luxury homes in Newport, Watch Hill and other well-heeled, summer communities in the state. 

Swift's house, for instance, is assessed at around $28 million, according to local real estate records. Her current property taxes are estimated at around $201,000 a year. The new charges will add another $136,442 to her annual taxes, bringing her yearly total to $337,442 – even though locals say she rarely visits. 

Won't someone think of the obscenely rich here?

Bueller???  Bueller???

Also, I would make a point here, if one were to put 25 vacation bungalows in the space used by that hideous $28 million monstrosity, you would have 25 people going there, instead of one person not going there, which is likely to generate a lot more money for local economies than absentee home owners,

So, How Corrupt is the Supreme Court?

We're about to find out, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, I normally refer to them as the "Patent Court", but they cover international trade as well, has ruled that Donald Trump has no authority to implement tariffs.

The legal reasoning is fairly straightforward, if one looks at the black letter of the Constitution, only Congress can levy taxes, which includes tariffs, and in all cases where the Congress has given the President the authority to act on their behalf, they have explicitly listed them in the language of the bill.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) has no mention of tariffs at all.

The injunction has been stayed until October to allow for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

The real question here is whether or not the Supreme Court will ignore the Constitution in order to more deeply fellate Donald Trump.

I expect a 5-4 or 6-3 decision in his favor. 

Gee, What a Shame 🤣

Not generally a fan of the Trump administration's actions with regard to anthropogenic climate change, but as I have noted before, I am not a fan of carbon credits, which I see as an inherently corrupt system.

Frequently, as is most the egregiously the case with The Nature Conservancy  these credits involve the sale of, "Credits," derived from activities that already would have happened.  (The Nature Conservancy sells carbon credit for properties that they had already declared will never be logged)

Another case is credits to EV manufacturers, who would have tried to sell the same cars with or without carbon credits.

So we have a case where bad politics, their being pro-pollution, results in good policy, 

That is a bit of brightness in the dark, but this is not what I find amusing.

What I find amusing is that the 2nd most egregious abuser of this program is Tesla, whose profits would be nearly non-existent without those credits and now the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy™ is having major butt-hurt over the loss of revenue: 

Despite the occasional stock market rally, Tesla is clearly struggling. The EV company, once the crown jewel of its industry, has seen steep declines over the past year, as its CEO, Elon Musk, continues to draw criticism over his political activities. Sales for the company are down all over the world, despite its recent introduction to new markets, like India. Now, as Tesla struggles to keep its head above water, another significant revenue stream is about to run dry, thanks largely to Musk’s former “buddy,” President Trump.

On September 30th, the EV regulatory credit is set to expire. The program, which has allowed gas-powered vehicles to sidestep federal fines linked to the pollution they create, has served to enrich a small number of electric vehicle producers, most notably Tesla. To avoid getting dinged over their emissions (the government has incentivized EV production by fining firms that fail to produce a certain threshold of zero-emission cars), traditional car companies can purchase “credits” from EV makers like Tesla, which allows them to stay within compliance.

For years, the EV regulatory credit has provided Musk’s company with a financial lifeline. Indeed, according to an E&E News analysis of Tesla’s securities filings, the company has earned over $10 billion from the scheme, a third of the company’s total profits over the last decade. Reuters reports that such credits are currently “crucial for Tesla’s finances” and that they have represented the “main driver” of the company’s profits during the first quarter of 2025. In that sense, despite its supposed mission of making the world a healthier place, Tesla has ironically helped to incentivize the continued production of gas-guzzling, emissions-producing cars, as the EV credits scheme has allowed many of the big-name automakers to continue on with business-as-usual.

 I've had my schadenfreude for the month.

Gee, You Think?

Gee, who could have known that among the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the trump administration, at least one of them would be making a profit on inside information about Commander TACO's flip flops.

Of course they are: 

………

Front-running is a trading term. It means using fore-knowledge of an impending trade or price move to engage in a personal or proprietary securities transaction in advance of that trade or move. If you know in advance that a price will move sharply, either up or down, front-running means trading in advance of that move, then getting out after the move is complete.

You can make a lot of money if you know what the market will do. Using advance, non-public knowledge of a market-moving transaction or announcement is usually illegal (unless you’re a member of Congress; I mean that literally). 

With that in mind, note this:

Nothing to see here.  Move along.

I Did Not Expect to See This Headline in The Economist

The headline is, "Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Is a Predictable Success." (Alternate link)

This is not something from a publication that sees most sorts of collective action and government interventions as highly suspect.

Congestion pricing works:

Maura Ryan, a speech therapist in New York City, was dreading the introduction of congestion pricing. To see her patients in Queens and Manhattan she sometimes drives across the East River a couple of times a day. The idea of paying a $9 toll each day infuriated her. Yet since the policy was actually implemented, she has changed her mind. A journey which used to take an hour or more can now be as quick as 15 minutes. “Well, this is very nice,” she admits thinking. Ms Ryan is not alone. Polls show more New Yorkers now support the toll than oppose it. A few months ago, it saw staunch opposition.

Congestion pricing came into effect in Manhattan on January 5th, just two weeks before Donald Trump became president. So far it has been almost miraculous in its effects. Traffic is down by about 10%, leading to substantially faster journeys, especially at the pinch-points of bridges and tunnels. Car-noise complaints are down by 70%. Buses are travelling so much faster that their drivers are having to stop and wait to keep to their schedules. The congestion charge is raising around $50m each month to update the subway and other public-transport systems, and ridership is up sharply. Broadway attendance is rising, not falling, as some feared.

We've known this for decades, ever since Ken "Red Ken" Livingston implemented the program in London.

Making drivers pay for the negative externalities of their behaviors is good policy.

More generally, making anyone who shifts the costs of their behavior onto the rest of society is good policy. 

 

The Fed Punts

Economists and financiers can deal with risk.  What they cannot deal with is uncertainty.

The former gives you at least a rough percentage chance of what might happen, while the latter case means that you have no idea what would happen.

An example of uncertainty would be a if we had an impulsive, petulant, narcissistic, and possibly senile person running US trade policy, for example.

It's a good thing that we don't have THAT in the United States, otherwise, the Federal Reserve might look at this uncertainty and hold off on rate cuts. 

Oh, wait, the Fed did look at this uncertainty and hold off on rate cuts. 

Funny, innit? 

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell projected confidence when he insisted the central bank was in a good position to handle whatever the economy does next—all while repeatedly acknowledging the Fed has little idea what’s actually coming.

The Fed is trying to see how the dust will settle from the aftereffects of President Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, among other policy changes. Most economists expect tariffs to lift prices over the coming months, and that is a worry for the Fed because officials still don’t feel as if they completely vanquished inflation after a three-year-long fight.

“We haven’t been through a situation like this, and I think we have to be humble about our ability to forecast it,” Powell said.

Inflation has eased recently, but tariff effects loom. The job market shows hints of softness, though unemployment remains low at 4.2%.

We are f%$#ed.