Flash: Elon Musk called for Donald Trump to be impeached after mocking his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies in an extraordinary social media feud on Thursday.
Better a Pennsylvania grand jury.Did Trump admit that Musk stole Pennsylvania?
Ranking Dem on House Oversight Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) is calling for the committee to subpoena Elon Musk for an inquiry on whether he was using drugs while working inside the Trump admin.
So it's just a another day in TACO Hell with TRump and his oligarch friends instructing him how to rig a market.
Even after the rigging is done and profits roll-in, do they do pass some of it on? Nope! With the market where they want it, they PRICE GOUGE the American people and screw the workers out of jobs and wages.
Thank you for putting your economics education to work for us, Greg. If only this President actually worked for us instead of Putin and the oligarchs.
What I just cannot process is how can one man do so many stupid things and how Congress, to its own demise, shoot themselves in the foot by enabling this supreme idiot....
This latest con is just more grease in the gears of the retro dues ex machina called the Dark Ages. As comical as it is to witness, the Marat de Saude style of 'management' of a huge mass of energies is revealed as the most gigantic FLOP in human history. Yesterday I read, via a studied psychologist, of the true aegis of megalomania, kind of a never-ending game of whack-a-mole where the player never succeeds, and with each smack of the bat its rage and frustration enlarge and vibrate at ever-increasing frequencies, the mega-microwave of cooking eggs from the inside out until they explode. The squeeze is nearing the crush point, and I would say get out of the way and batten down the hatches - there is nothing here to fight back against, there is no superstructure OR infrastructure to either destroy or defend. Given this nation's multiple-personality pathos, it was bound to happen, and that time is now. Create small cells of interdependent/intradependent reliability, miniature ecosystems of adaptive survival, and pay attention to them, and how to keep them viable.
You must have read something else. I said nothing about laying down, or dying. Survival has many strategies. The least effective is fighting windmills. This is not Dancing With Wolves. I want to keep my wolves alive, so I will play my cards carefully, and find some allies with whom I can increase the odds of doing the most damage with the fewest injuries. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) errs greatly in its analysis of the Big Beautiful Bill. They fudge where you can’t argue (future interest and inflation). First of all, their starting point misses $1.5 trillion in the first 2 years. 1) First CBO overlooks that the first 2 years will be impacted by budget additions with no offset until the 2028 tax year. The current CBO-projected annual deficit? $1.9 trillion, and we are over budget $200 billion right now! Because of huge CR add ons, the annual deficit will be $2.5 trillion over each of the next 2 years. CBO had estimated those 2026?and 2027 deficits to be $1.8 and 1.7 trillion, instead of $5 trillion—that must be borrowed at higher interest rates than CBO uses. 2) CBO uses 3.5% interest on Treasury bonds. That is far below the 4.91% that we current “enjoy” due to falling worldwide buyer-investor confidence. 3) CBO says inflation will be calculated at 2% when it now 2.4%. Tariffs will hit inflation hard! 4) That is how they get to saying hogwash like $2 trillion ADDED over 10 years. 5) CBO did not tell you they are talking about ADDED to their $52 Trillion estimate for 2035. 6) They see $54 trillion as our total outstanding deficit in 2035. I see $56 trillion if Republicans cut $13 trillion with the Big Beautiful Bill. We need a tax cut like we need a hole in the head. The fiscal irresponsibility is unfathomable. Republicans have lost their minds. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/the-25-trillion-annual-deficit-plan?r=3m1bs
Besides the CBO, a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that economic growth around the globe is slowing because of Trump’s trade war. It projects global growth slowing from 3.3% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025 and 2026. That economic slowdown is concentrated primarily in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China.
I see that Fetterman is really het up about something, with all that smoke pouring out of his head. I was wondering if the steel and aluminum tariffs were a way of making the oil and petrochemical industries happy, because plastic parts would be the obvious substitute for steel or aluminum parts.
Yesss. A conman once a conman always. But his fucking presidency allows him to reach stratospheric levels, thanks to this insane treacherous corrupt scotus maga so called "justices". Shame on these fascists who are stomping on the Constitution and spitting on the Fathers. Disgusting
It is his ego, actually, and by that I mean his inferiority complex, his bullying and bluster and revenge acts, as well as accumulating money is all part of his need to bolster his sad and failing ego. When Stormy Daniels appeared on the Colbert Show and chose a small button mushroom as a replica of Trumps' penis he had to have been dealt a huge blow.Or more likely he doesn't watch Colbert, after all it is not on Murdoch's station.
Trump's head seems to be stuck in the 1950s when America was a strong manufacturing country., I certainly agree we should have a strong base (dependent on Taiwanese laptops is not a great long- term strategy) and Thom has discussed at length the need for some appropriate tariffs. But steel, while sounding good, is not a smart move, at least the way he is doing it.
U.S. steel production peaked in 1969 at 141 million tons and in 2023 the figure was down to 90 million. Management might have been smarter in how they looked ahead, but part of the issue is that demand has gone down. We're not building many giant skyscrapers, rail lines or huge bridges anymore. Also, as you note there are some substitutes, such as making lighter cars. But according to the US Steel Board only 25% of the steel we used was imported. So even if tariffs cut that out we won't have the same industry we once had. Also, building a steel mill takes at least a year, up to 3 with state-of-the-art equipment in it. (And where is that made? I don't know but I doubt if it is here.)
So even more so than coal mining the industry simply cannot come back to what it was. But don't try to confuse him with facts, he can't listen.
There are alternatives to helping workers’ wages. US businesses spent over $1 trillion in buybacking their own shares in 2024. That could’ve been given to workers without increasing product prices or touching the outrageous level executive pay or dividends.
An Institute For Policy Studies’ report did the calculations. For example, regarding Lowe’s one year: “With the $13 billion Lowes alone spent on share repurchases, the company could have given each of its 325,000 employees a $40,000 raise. Instead, its median pay fell 7.6 percent to $22,697.” https://ips-dc.org/report-executive-excess-2022/
As an experienced Purchasing guy knows, the fewer suppliers you have on a bid list, the higher the prices (and greater chances of collusion-price fixing). The more completion, the lower the prices.
The media has speculated “the companies “may” pass the tariff costs on to customers. May? Or, they could use tariffs as an excuse to price gouge. In 2022 and 2023, corporations used “global inflation” as an excuse to raise prices to “record” levels. Analysis showed that 54% of the “inflation” was caused by corporate price gouging…which led to their record and near record profits, stock buybacks and CEO pay and bonuses. “Might raise prices”? Count on it.
We need to start enforcing anti-trust laws, again.
It's all about extortion. Not just tariffs. Everything. The spin offs......
This is so bad that I may have to start rooting for the Ravens, the Browns, the Bengals....any team but the Steelers.
This is deja vu all over again. I am beamed back to 1977. Youngstown Ohio was the 5th largest steel producer in the world. Its largest employer Youngstown Sheet and Tube was, in essence, bought out by the Japanese. Not a Japanese comnpany, but Japan the country.
"Black Monday," September 19, 1977, marked the day the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company announced the closure of its Campbell Works, triggering a devastating economic and social impact on the Mahoning Valley. This event is still remembered as a turning point in the decline of the steel industry and the Rust Belt.
Youngstown had been depicted by Life Magazine as "Murdertown USA." But the clolsing of the Campbell Works aggravated and exasperated the situation. It became the unemployment capitol, the depression capitol, the suicide capitol, etc.
Thom/Greg note Trump’s magical thinking about tariffs has cost America 136,000 jobs in manufacturing compared to 2023. It will get worse -- a lot worse.
Meanwhile, extorter in chief Trump made a victory trip to Pittsburgh where he told a crowd at the U.S. Steel plant that he was doubling tariffs on imported steel, making the announcement as he celebrated the multibillion dollar deal between the iconic American steelmaker and the Japanese company Nippon Steel.
"We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We're going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States," Trump said. "Nobody's going to get around that."
He described a "planned partnership" and a major win for American manufacturing — even as the details of what's actually in the agreement remain far from clear.
The crowd, oblivious to history, applauded. He later made a number of other appearances. The one that disturbs me the most is he appeared with some current and former Steelers who awarded him a jersey and declared that Steeler country is Trump country.
The Steelers like all professional sports is a profit making corporation, run by men whose goal is ego and profit, and they hire, at outrageous salaries, indentured servants to beat each other up, in the pursuit of bolstering the ego of the owner and padding his account.
Just because the owner gives a city or state name to his franchise there is no reason to reward him with loyalty and shower him with money for overpriced tickets.
How many members of the Steelers are actually from Pittsburgh or even Pennsylvania.?
What mystical attribute attributes to a team, that has a name given it by a man seeking to bolster his ego and pocketbook.
In the early days of sports, players were actually members of the community, whose team bore the name if the community.
Actually all of the ownership, i.e. the Rooneys, are Democrats.
I identify with the current NFL players from my high school -- I knew their grandparents -- but when they play the Steelers -- not so much.
When I was in HS the coach of the Redskins' offseason job was as a part time investigator in the County Detective's office when my 'ol pappy was DA. As a player, although he never played in HS, he played for Pitt and later the Steelers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McPeak
You explained it all at the start! Price inflation caused by tariffs or something else is a great way to make "unearned profits." It can reduce gross profit margins while increasing profits. It can reduce ROI while increasing profit dollars. "Money For Nothing & The Chicks For Free"
Greg Palast is a National Treasure. I would love to see him investigate Sinclair Broadcast and how they were able to buy hundreds of local news stations under various franchises in order to push Republican lpropaganda to local viewers who thought they were getting truth through CBS or NBC, or ABC, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, when really what they are getting are lies, lies, and more lies via Boris Epshteyn, or Gorchka, or others who may have been removed from the White House but kept close so they could be controlled loyalists to Trump because they know too much.
Thank you, again, for another enlightening article. How many steelworkers understand this fiasco?
Flash: Elon Musk called for Donald Trump to be impeached after mocking his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies in an extraordinary social media feud on Thursday.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/05/trump-elon-musk-fallout
I am Musk goes "full nuclear" and discloses how the election was rigged.
Better a Pennsylvania grand jury.Did Trump admit that Musk stole Pennsylvania?
Ranking Dem on House Oversight Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) is calling for the committee to subpoena Elon Musk for an inquiry on whether he was using drugs while working inside the Trump admin.
How long before Presidential Privilege or an offer of a pardon is used to shut him up and bring him back into the fold?
No pardon if Pa. prosecutes.
Capitalism: it’s what’s eating your breakfast.
Thank you Greg Palast!
So it's just a another day in TACO Hell with TRump and his oligarch friends instructing him how to rig a market.
Even after the rigging is done and profits roll-in, do they do pass some of it on? Nope! With the market where they want it, they PRICE GOUGE the American people and screw the workers out of jobs and wages.
Thank you for putting your economics education to work for us, Greg. If only this President actually worked for us instead of Putin and the oligarchs.
I too thank you Greg for the education!
What I just cannot process is how can one man do so many stupid things and how Congress, to its own demise, shoot themselves in the foot by enabling this supreme idiot....
Instead of congratulating Zelensky, Trump comiserated with Putin. This should be headlines in evey paper, as war rages.
Global post this morning. https://globalpost.com/stories/as-the-world-pushes-a-truce-russia-and-ukraines-war-and-peace-drag-on/?lh_aid=35942&lh_cid=0gras7qibs&lh_em=apaalj%40gmail.com&di=c5fe299badb0279d96645be0e7007312
Encourage the 80 senators who have co-sponsored a bill to impose stronger sanctions against Russia. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1241 Picket, sit in against any who won't support it.
This latest con is just more grease in the gears of the retro dues ex machina called the Dark Ages. As comical as it is to witness, the Marat de Saude style of 'management' of a huge mass of energies is revealed as the most gigantic FLOP in human history. Yesterday I read, via a studied psychologist, of the true aegis of megalomania, kind of a never-ending game of whack-a-mole where the player never succeeds, and with each smack of the bat its rage and frustration enlarge and vibrate at ever-increasing frequencies, the mega-microwave of cooking eggs from the inside out until they explode. The squeeze is nearing the crush point, and I would say get out of the way and batten down the hatches - there is nothing here to fight back against, there is no superstructure OR infrastructure to either destroy or defend. Given this nation's multiple-personality pathos, it was bound to happen, and that time is now. Create small cells of interdependent/intradependent reliability, miniature ecosystems of adaptive survival, and pay attention to them, and how to keep them viable.
To accept that BS the prescription is suicide. Why are you here?
We may be products of genetics, but we have the capacity to adapt and change.
.
You think I'd lay down and die?
.
No, not I, I will survive
Long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got my life to live
And all my love to give and
I will survive
I, I, I will survive
,
Songwriters: Frederick J. Perren / Dino Fekaris
You must have read something else. I said nothing about laying down, or dying. Survival has many strategies. The least effective is fighting windmills. This is not Dancing With Wolves. I want to keep my wolves alive, so I will play my cards carefully, and find some allies with whom I can increase the odds of doing the most damage with the fewest injuries. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.
Who says...there is nothing here to fight back against?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) errs greatly in its analysis of the Big Beautiful Bill. They fudge where you can’t argue (future interest and inflation). First of all, their starting point misses $1.5 trillion in the first 2 years. 1) First CBO overlooks that the first 2 years will be impacted by budget additions with no offset until the 2028 tax year. The current CBO-projected annual deficit? $1.9 trillion, and we are over budget $200 billion right now! Because of huge CR add ons, the annual deficit will be $2.5 trillion over each of the next 2 years. CBO had estimated those 2026?and 2027 deficits to be $1.8 and 1.7 trillion, instead of $5 trillion—that must be borrowed at higher interest rates than CBO uses. 2) CBO uses 3.5% interest on Treasury bonds. That is far below the 4.91% that we current “enjoy” due to falling worldwide buyer-investor confidence. 3) CBO says inflation will be calculated at 2% when it now 2.4%. Tariffs will hit inflation hard! 4) That is how they get to saying hogwash like $2 trillion ADDED over 10 years. 5) CBO did not tell you they are talking about ADDED to their $52 Trillion estimate for 2035. 6) They see $54 trillion as our total outstanding deficit in 2035. I see $56 trillion if Republicans cut $13 trillion with the Big Beautiful Bill. We need a tax cut like we need a hole in the head. The fiscal irresponsibility is unfathomable. Republicans have lost their minds. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/the-25-trillion-annual-deficit-plan?r=3m1bs
Musk has to make a great target defendant.
Besides the CBO, a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that economic growth around the globe is slowing because of Trump’s trade war. It projects global growth slowing from 3.3% in 2024 to 2.9% in 2025 and 2026. That economic slowdown is concentrated primarily in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a new report entitled, “Special Interests over the Public Interest: Elon Musk's 130 Days in the Trump Administration.” https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/130_days_of_elon_musk_report.pdf
What about other liability exposure? The other day Thom documented, as seconded by Bill Gates, accused Musk of the killing of 300,00 Africans.
Factually packed post Carl, thanks!!
I see that Fetterman is really het up about something, with all that smoke pouring out of his head. I was wondering if the steel and aluminum tariffs were a way of making the oil and petrochemical industries happy, because plastic parts would be the obvious substitute for steel or aluminum parts.
Yesss. A conman once a conman always. But his fucking presidency allows him to reach stratospheric levels, thanks to this insane treacherous corrupt scotus maga so called "justices". Shame on these fascists who are stomping on the Constitution and spitting on the Fathers. Disgusting
Everything Trump does has only one purpose: line his pockets. It is all he cares about. He is the biggest con artist of all time.
It is his ego, actually, and by that I mean his inferiority complex, his bullying and bluster and revenge acts, as well as accumulating money is all part of his need to bolster his sad and failing ego. When Stormy Daniels appeared on the Colbert Show and chose a small button mushroom as a replica of Trumps' penis he had to have been dealt a huge blow.Or more likely he doesn't watch Colbert, after all it is not on Murdoch's station.
Here's a list of everything that's in the BBB. Horrible to say the least.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text
Check out the Jerry Weiss scenario. https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Hope that the plot is falling into place.
Musk is actively attacking the bill. Never expected that!
Trump's head seems to be stuck in the 1950s when America was a strong manufacturing country., I certainly agree we should have a strong base (dependent on Taiwanese laptops is not a great long- term strategy) and Thom has discussed at length the need for some appropriate tariffs. But steel, while sounding good, is not a smart move, at least the way he is doing it.
U.S. steel production peaked in 1969 at 141 million tons and in 2023 the figure was down to 90 million. Management might have been smarter in how they looked ahead, but part of the issue is that demand has gone down. We're not building many giant skyscrapers, rail lines or huge bridges anymore. Also, as you note there are some substitutes, such as making lighter cars. But according to the US Steel Board only 25% of the steel we used was imported. So even if tariffs cut that out we won't have the same industry we once had. Also, building a steel mill takes at least a year, up to 3 with state-of-the-art equipment in it. (And where is that made? I don't know but I doubt if it is here.)
So even more so than coal mining the industry simply cannot come back to what it was. But don't try to confuse him with facts, he can't listen.
There are alternatives to helping workers’ wages. US businesses spent over $1 trillion in buybacking their own shares in 2024. That could’ve been given to workers without increasing product prices or touching the outrageous level executive pay or dividends.
An Institute For Policy Studies’ report did the calculations. For example, regarding Lowe’s one year: “With the $13 billion Lowes alone spent on share repurchases, the company could have given each of its 325,000 employees a $40,000 raise. Instead, its median pay fell 7.6 percent to $22,697.” https://ips-dc.org/report-executive-excess-2022/
As an experienced Purchasing guy knows, the fewer suppliers you have on a bid list, the higher the prices (and greater chances of collusion-price fixing). The more completion, the lower the prices.
The media has speculated “the companies “may” pass the tariff costs on to customers. May? Or, they could use tariffs as an excuse to price gouge. In 2022 and 2023, corporations used “global inflation” as an excuse to raise prices to “record” levels. Analysis showed that 54% of the “inflation” was caused by corporate price gouging…which led to their record and near record profits, stock buybacks and CEO pay and bonuses. “Might raise prices”? Count on it.
We need to start enforcing anti-trust laws, again.
It's all about extortion. Not just tariffs. Everything. The spin offs......
This is so bad that I may have to start rooting for the Ravens, the Browns, the Bengals....any team but the Steelers.
This is deja vu all over again. I am beamed back to 1977. Youngstown Ohio was the 5th largest steel producer in the world. Its largest employer Youngstown Sheet and Tube was, in essence, bought out by the Japanese. Not a Japanese comnpany, but Japan the country.
"Black Monday," September 19, 1977, marked the day the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company announced the closure of its Campbell Works, triggering a devastating economic and social impact on the Mahoning Valley. This event is still remembered as a turning point in the decline of the steel industry and the Rust Belt.
Youngstown had been depicted by Life Magazine as "Murdertown USA." But the clolsing of the Campbell Works aggravated and exasperated the situation. It became the unemployment capitol, the depression capitol, the suicide capitol, etc.
Thom/Greg note Trump’s magical thinking about tariffs has cost America 136,000 jobs in manufacturing compared to 2023. It will get worse -- a lot worse.
Meanwhile, extorter in chief Trump made a victory trip to Pittsburgh where he told a crowd at the U.S. Steel plant that he was doubling tariffs on imported steel, making the announcement as he celebrated the multibillion dollar deal between the iconic American steelmaker and the Japanese company Nippon Steel.
"We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We're going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States," Trump said. "Nobody's going to get around that."
He described a "planned partnership" and a major win for American manufacturing — even as the details of what's actually in the agreement remain far from clear.
The crowd, oblivious to history, applauded. He later made a number of other appearances. The one that disturbs me the most is he appeared with some current and former Steelers who awarded him a jersey and declared that Steeler country is Trump country.
As a lifelong Steeler fan, this hurts the most.
The Steelers like all professional sports is a profit making corporation, run by men whose goal is ego and profit, and they hire, at outrageous salaries, indentured servants to beat each other up, in the pursuit of bolstering the ego of the owner and padding his account.
Just because the owner gives a city or state name to his franchise there is no reason to reward him with loyalty and shower him with money for overpriced tickets.
How many members of the Steelers are actually from Pittsburgh or even Pennsylvania.?
What mystical attribute attributes to a team, that has a name given it by a man seeking to bolster his ego and pocketbook.
In the early days of sports, players were actually members of the community, whose team bore the name if the community.
Actually all of the ownership, i.e. the Rooneys, are Democrats.
I identify with the current NFL players from my high school -- I knew their grandparents -- but when they play the Steelers -- not so much.
When I was in HS the coach of the Redskins' offseason job was as a part time investigator in the County Detective's office when my 'ol pappy was DA. As a player, although he never played in HS, he played for Pitt and later the Steelers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McPeak
Nearly all of the ownership, of which teams Daniel are Democrats. Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner is a Trump suck up https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/roger-goodell-trump-nfl.html
Just the Steelers. They were always the Democrats' favorite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_M._Rooney
Some exceptions like Lynn Swann.
Were past tense. Like politicians, then they flip like Adam Schiff
Not the Rooneys.
You explained it all at the start! Price inflation caused by tariffs or something else is a great way to make "unearned profits." It can reduce gross profit margins while increasing profits. It can reduce ROI while increasing profit dollars. "Money For Nothing & The Chicks For Free"
Capitalism is about capital and debt.
Every commodity can be manipulated. https://www.cftc.gov/
Trump is killing off the agencies that are suppoed to be on top of it.
This is what the MAGATs voted for.
Greg Palast is a National Treasure. I would love to see him investigate Sinclair Broadcast and how they were able to buy hundreds of local news stations under various franchises in order to push Republican lpropaganda to local viewers who thought they were getting truth through CBS or NBC, or ABC, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, when really what they are getting are lies, lies, and more lies via Boris Epshteyn, or Gorchka, or others who may have been removed from the White House but kept close so they could be controlled loyalists to Trump because they know too much.