After seeing all kinds of evil and stupidity in Donald Trump I begin to see that was my projection: there may be no there there at all.
Donald Trump is a “truly authentic fake,” writes McAdams, professor of human development and social policy at the School of Education and Social Policy. “Trump is always acting, always on stage — but that is who he really is, and that is all he really is. He is not introspective, retrospective or prospective. He does not go deep into his mind; he does not travel back to the past; he does not project far into the future. He is always on the surface, always right now. ...
The features of Trump’s strange personality — his orientation to love, his proclivity for untruth, his narcissistic goal agenda, his authoritarian sentiments — can be fully appreciated and understood only if we realize that they revolve around the empty narrative core, the hollow inner space where the story should be, but never was ...
Trump’s remarks came shortly after the Federal Reserve announced that it’s cutting its benchmark interest rate to zero in an effort to protect the economy from the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
For this news, I must don my peanut gallery style® (former) economics teacher hat. This measure will do nothing for small businesses that borrow from banks to stay afloat. I have spoken with two restaurant owners/managers in the past two days. Borrowing money to remain solvent costs them money. That we do not know how long this crisis will last could render the strategy futile. Besides that, for banks to lend money as a replacement for income is economic cruelty. The Fed’s discount window should be open to anyone who has a federal tax ID number. At least, that measure will blunt the horribleness of borrowing money to pay the bills.
Any number of bright scenarios can be imagined on the other side of this thing. CDC and WHO projections are the stuff of nightmares, thus escalating the fare to arrive at any one of them obscene.
I truly believe that one of the institutional losers from this pandemic will be our shitty for-profit healthcare system. As an added bonus, those Reagan true believers might rediscover what government is for. That threadbare Reagan-trope, “government is not the solution … yada … it is the problem” will likely be tossed too.
The US population is aging, the dependency ratio is rising, and the IMF puts the country’s potential growth at around 1.7% a year over the next decade. So what is this really about? Will such stimulus trigger a vast infrastructure boom, like an electrical economy or an AI economy? How is it that these projects, unknown last week, reveal themselves tomorrow? Monetary policy is just pushing on a string without pull from demand.
I think he sees people merely as their job title or company of employment, and not as full-fledged human beings with families, interests, dreams, and hopes. That’s why he shortens people’s names so. He doesn’t care about Tim Cook, for example. He only cares about Apple, the corporation, and what they mean to his electoral interests. And Tim…of Apple…is the man to talk to.
