Summary
Trump’s move to defund USAID is causing unintended consequences for American farmers and businesses.
The Washington Post reports that USAID purchases billions in U.S. agricultural products, with American farms supplying 41% of its food aid.
The funding freeze has already halted $340 million in food shipments, leaving tons of wheat stranded in Houston.
Experts warn this decision directly harms American jobs and businesses, as much of USAID’s aid is administered through U.S.-based organizations employing American workers.
Something like almost 80% of farmers voted Trump. Those leopards are eating good
Those leopards are eating good
The leopards are becoming obese now, WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE LEOPARDS
Unfortunately, we won’t be in the coming months.
They write these stories like this isn’t the result he is looking for. The point is to crash, not rebuild; nothing the Trump administration is doing is geared to help, rebuild, or make America great. That’s not how they make money. The more I see, the more I hear the more I am convinced the whole point is to destabilize and rebuild to get rid of that pesky constitution.
Maybe I am just angry or doomsaying, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look that way, and to make matters even worse, people just can’t wrap their heads around the whole organized minority rules over the unorganized majority thing.
They write these stories like this isn’t the result he is looking for. The point is to crash, not rebuild;
I’m noticing a slightly different pattern with these actions. I don’t think trump and his cronies were actually seeking to hurt farmers, but something else.
- hurt everyone temporary to see who screams.
- Those that scream that are opponents, continue to deny them the government benefit
- Those that are allies, extract concessions and/or pledges of fealty before returning the same benefit they had before.
- For those that don’t scream, or don’t scream loud enough, simply pocket the benefit for himself and his own goals.
nothing the Trump administration is doing is geared to help, rebuild, or make America great.
Agreed.
Demarcating between enemies and allies (coerced or otherwise) is most definitely a primary goal.
And on the way down, connected rich people have already shorted select industries’ stocks, then will buy in bigtime after the crash to profit on the long way back up.
The rich get richer.
EDIT: the way back up won’t be so long, as theh recovery will be aided by big bailouts (or bail-ins) at the taxpayers’ expense. So we’ll get screwed not one, not two, but THREE ways.
destabilize and rebuild
destroy and cash-out.
Capital leverages instability to transfer wealth to itself from the working class.
Having control over the levers of chaos means that they can not only leverage instability whenever and however they want, they are also singularly able to predict when the chaos will subside. This increases their economic power exponentially.
That’s basically what all the instability of the early 20th century was all about. On one end of the spectrum, you had communists and socialist looking at the old order and then reacting by destroying it all. On the other end of the political spectrum, you had the far right movements of the Nazis in Germany who saw the writing on the wall with the socialist wave moving in and instead wanted to create a counter movement to all the socially minded. The wealthy capitalists, millionaires, monarchs and historic aristocracy were more than willing to back the far right conservative movements who were willing to work with them than to let communists in who clearly just wanted to get rid of all the old wealthy class.
The same thing is happening all over again. Different playing field, new dynamics but still the same old ball game. Modern wealth can’t work with the current system and they know things have to change so its better to back the far right than to let any kind of social democratic system take over. They’d rather destroy everything because they know that whoever is first to build whatever that remains will be the new kings and rulers of the future. Rather than accommodate and grow in any democratic system, they’d rather watch the world burn and then take over the masses who will crawl out of the ashes.
Destabilization is 100% the point. Create problems, sell solutions. Make the people reliant on the government for everything so they fully own and control you.
the deep fucking irony of who’s always complaining about welfare queens…
They know it’s all about destroying the government. They’re just too chicken shit to say it.
Trump: “If food prices are so high, what if we just… keep all the food here? That will bring them down, right?”
Dustbowl 2025, fuck yeah! Bringing back the classics!
(Farmers won’t or can’t spend money to plant -> too many fallow fields -> giant walls of airborne topsoil)
Mate, the orange halfwit has just flooded a huge number of farms in California. They’re still gonna vote for him.
I don’t know if him opening the dams flooded any farms, but come summertime, they’re going to be hurting as the reservoirs empty out long before they should have.
I mean, if they vote for Democrats, they might turn gay or woke.
goke
Seriously, only people permanently stuck in adolescence with bullshit Libertarian notions about government believe that you can BREAK government and things will turn out well.
Only a dumbfuck Randroid type (or maybe the random leftist veering on wrapping all the way around the horseshoe) thinks that burning it all down is going to lead to better things…it’s easy if you are totally ignorant to think that “government doesn’t do anything for ME” as an actual thing you believe.
… “government doesn’t do anything for ME” as an actual thing you believe.
This happens because people take completely for granted all of the things government quietly does for them.
It’s kind of the same as “Why do we even have an IT department? Everything works, what are they even doing?”
“Haw haw!”
Well, it’s what they voted for in their blind hatred of everything that made America great.
Surely they’ll still buy those goods and give them to Americans. They aren’t just dissolving programs and making money disappear, couldn’t be.
I had some nutjob on a local group tell me that Trump has removed federal taxes as if I and everyone else can’t clearly see that we’re still paying the same federal taxes on my paystubs. I can’t believe how brainwashed some people have become.
Also tangentially related but I filled out my tax return today and owe a lot more this year thanks to his bullshit 2018 tax bill that capped SALT deductions, removed the child tax credit, and only gave temporary cuts to people who aren’t in the 1%. I can only imagine that his supporters are either retired, unemployed, or on social security to also not realize how much more he’s forcing us to pay to the government.
Yeah, they couldn’t possibly be cruel or incompetent, not them!
dorks.
Similarly, weapon shipments to Israel and Ukraine are subsidies of American weapons manufacturers.
I wonder which party farmers and defense contractors tend to vote for?
A fair amount of those weapons needed to be used anyway as well. This gets them used, and builds up a fresher stockpile creating/maintaining jobs.
They didn’t need to be used. They could have been destroyed instead.
Well sure, and to commit genocide I’d rather they have been destroyed, but in the case of Ukraine, it’s better than destroying them.
Yeah, I agree for Ukraine.
Not only is it better to give them to Ukraine than to just destroy them, it also lets American generals and weapons manufacturers learn how they work in a real combat situation, and in conditions they may not have much experience with.
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American generals and weapons manufacturers have some experience with desert warfare. But, Ukraine gives them a chance to see how their systems do in sub-zero weather in winter. They also get to see how their systems do against a near-peer enemy, vs. how they do against guerillas and militias.
The war in Ukraine is a very smart “investment” for the American military and for American military companies. They get to learn lessons while not having any American soldiers at risk, and while massively damaging an enemy like Russia.
Giving them to Israel is bullshit though. Not only is Israel in the midst of an ethnic cleansing campaign, there also aren’t many useful lessons to be learned by another campaign of smashing civilians, guerillas and militias in a desert.
aren’t many useful lessons to be learned by another campaign of smashing civilians, guerillas and militias in a desert.
Just got me laughing thinking of a multi million dollar munition being shot at civilians with no defences (okay not that part, but the next part) and the military contractors being like, yep, the missile works when there’s (edit: zero) counter measures to stop it, in conditions we’ve tested a hundred times before in combat. Guess we don’t learn anything this time!
Yeah, sometimes you have to laugh so you don’t cry.
