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‘About Us, Without Us’
Donald Trump has a... let's call it "complicated" relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky's Ukraine.
Trump's a man who doesn't know the meaning of the term "personal responsibility." Wait. Let me back up. He does, but only when the context is good things. All positive developments are, on his telling, his doing, even when there's no connection between those developments and himself. Everything bad that happens, by contrast, is everywhere and always someone else's fault, even when he's objectively
The incredible shame I feel as an American watching these failures is something I’ve never experienced before. The cowardice, greed, betrayal and hubris is beyond my imagination.
Couldn’t have said it better. This 100%.
Ditto, meanwhile, we’ve got the richest guy in the world stripping tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civil servants of their livelihoods while posting falsehood after falsehood accusing them of being the enemy. It’s sickening.
I have a feeling Rubio is going through the same stages of disillusionment that all of Trump’s halfway sane cabinet members went through, thinking he could be the one to steer Trump toward some version of sanity only to realize he is now forever tainted by their association with Trump and will soon be discarded likely so many before him when he understands that he sold his soul and can’t be part of it anymore. Then again, maybe he’s just as much of a sociopath as the lot of them.
The Musk thing is one of the most egregiously ridiculous charades I’ve personally ever witnessed. This is an ostensible libertarian crusader acting, according to him, on behalf of the “Don’t tread on me,” “keep government out of my life” crowd, and his modus operandi is to personally access the most sensitive data anywhere on American citizens, with no clear explanation as to what he’s doing or why, and his pitch is “You can trust me, because I’m doing it out in the open”?
I mean, the gullibility on display here among tens of millions of Americans is positively astounding. Half the country doesn’t trust Kamala Harris to pour them a glass of milk, but they’ll readily (happily, even) turn over to Musk — a private citizen whose business revolves, in part, around monetizing data — every, single piece of sensitive information about themselves and their families, including now their IRS profiles.
I’m sure Elon wonders, on some days, “How was this so easy?” “How are all these people so stupid?” Or, as Zuck famously put it, “I have emails, pictures, addresses, SNS. People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They ‘trust me.’ Dumb f–ks.”
Yeah, it’s even worse knowing how these tech titans have no qualms about taking whatever advantage they can get in the AI race. Musk just released Grok 3 – would it surprise anyone if he’s using all this data in his AI models? Meta at least had to go through the work of ripping off everyone’s work by torrenting it.
Just wait until Musk decides to implement a “citizenship score” to rate everyone on their contributions to society based on his personal criteria.
In 1988 my wife and I took our teenage sons on a bicycle tour through parts of France and Switzerland. We began our tour in the small seaside village of Saint-Jean-de-Luz where we met an elderly local who, on discovering that we were Americans, insisted on giving each of us a hug and a kiss on each cheek. He then proceeded to tearfully express his gratitude to America for having saved his beloved country. Such strong positive sentiment after more than four decades. As a nation we have managed to piss away any further fostering of such in less than four weeks.
The current leadership needs to read some history books about the talks between Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938.
It would have to be a picture book
Still too complex – how about tweets with lots of exclamation points?
Looking at that picture, Blinken said it well.
“If you are not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu.”
And who do we have representing USA , Rubio, a man so slow witted, Chris Christy could end his presidential campaign with a 30 sec verbal assault.
Sadly, I remember that debate and was excited because I knew that was when Trump would win the primary and give Democrats their only shot to win the general election. A pox on my head and a lesson in being careful what you wish for!
Who are flanking Rubio?
Surprisingly good Geo political analysis from a finance guy—really, quite impressive and spot on!
Stephen, I’m a political scientist (and other things) by training (“training”). I’ve never been what you’re calling “a finance guy.” Finance is just something I happened upon, by accident, and compared to everything else I’ve done in my life, it was easy to master. You should read the Monthlies. You’ll love ’em.
I second that! The Monthlies are great
I’m thinking about rolling them into a book by placing them in chronological order and writing segues. They’re really a life story filtered through a socioeconomic lens. The narration just jumps around temporally, so you have to go back and figure out which story fits where in the timeline.
excellent
seemed so obvious from the first, but a book would mean an end
Great! I’ve been hoping for that. And please be sure to include the really old “monthlies” that I remember from the early days, that you at one time posted on Seeking Alpha. I recall a couple of those being pretty moving.
That’s truly truly exciting to hear. The comparison I make to myself is your as good with what you do as Billy Joel is with a piano.
Do it. Churchill wrote one after another. Remember, before it was economics and finance it was Political Economy. I’d travel to get my first edition autographed. Once you do your first one they get much easier to do. You can just keep going.
As shortened graphic showing where each fit into the timeline might help avoid the jumping around. The graphic could have one side be the story timeline the other side could graphically represent the storyline jumping. The graphic might be simplistic in many cases.
Well, the jumping around is intentional. You have to piece it together. The super-dedicated readers among you have probably picked out the main characters by now — they’ve all made multiple cameos. There are a lot of tangential characters too, but there are five mains, including me.
The picture of 6th grade Rubio sitting across from Satin’s, sorry Putin’s postDoc Rasputin is breathtaking. Rubio looks like he’s waiting for a root canal and he’s probably going to get one.
No wonder the Russians are laughing, they’re thinking this is just too easy.
More likely a colonoscopy (no anesthesia). I covered the Russian market for 12 years and rule #1 was never show weakness. Trump has given away the store. No wonder those goons are smiling.
Laughing at the stupidity and what they will do to exploit the weaknesses presented.
I wonder if showing this visual to all congresspersons and senators might get some movement on impeachment.
I’m no political scientist, but feel like my non-college educated mom managed to teach me by grade school that shitting on your best friends (Canada and Mexico), embracing your worst allies (Israel and Saudi Arabia) and currying favor with your biggest bully (Russia), probably wasn’t going to produce ideal results for me.
well said
Really, with the way things are going in the US and the manner in which the government deals with its “allies”, I wonder how long you will still be allowed to write these somewhat critical articles about the US government. To me, it’s a breath of fresh air, but I really wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t allowed anymore 4 years from now.
How in the world can they be so willing to deal with mass murderers and terror states while lecturing its democratic allies on trying to protect themselves from those same bad actors?
H-Man, do labradors count as main characters?
I, too, will travel to get my copy personally signed. Can’t wait! Who knows, I might even drive; and if I do, I’d be happy to give a ride to Mr. Lucky (he lives on my way). I’d also like to meet “little h” when I attend your book signing. As far as I can tell, he is the only subscriber from any part of your prior lives, so it might be interesting to meet him, in person.
It seems like there might be a few remaining “holes” in your story (providing more insight into “why” you made the decisions that you did in your life), which I look forward reading about in your future, yet-unpublished monthlies. It won’t quite be “Kitchen Confidential”, as I initially imagined…..however, I have to admit, it is turning out to be an even more interesting and thought-provoking read.