OVAL OFFICE BUFFOONERY

[CCarl]

Do All Politicians Lie? Why does it feel like the Oval Office is controlled by the Mob, regardless of which party is in control? A quiet voice in my brain answers, "Because they are all Mobsters."

Here are some of Donny "Reality-TV" Trump's promises that fell well short during his first term in the Oval Office.
Promised to cut the deficit but added $8 trillion to it.
Promised to build a wall; completed only 458 miles out of 2,000, mostly repairs & only 53 miles of new wall.
Promised Mexico would pay for the wall; it didn't.
Promised a new healthcare plan; it never existed.
Promised a middle-class tax cut; primarily cut taxes for the rich only.
Promised not to play golf; taxpayers paid $150 million for 250 rounds of golf with security teams.
Promised to increase economic growth 4%; missed it.
Promised an infrastructure plan; had none.
Promised to hire "the best people"; fired 3/4 of them, then labeled them the worst.
Promised to reduce prescription drug prices; didn't happen.
Promised to win the trade war with China; it cost the US a quarter million jobs.
Promised to revive the coal industry; more coal jobs were lost during his term.
Promised the COVID vaccine was safe for us; it wasn't.

Now, here is Donny early in his second Oval Office term, by now anointed by some MAGA hats as the next coming. (Seriously MAGA hats, how slim do the pickings have to get?)

Trump's Claim: "We're Reclaiming the Panama Canal", "My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal... The Panama Canal was built by Americans, for Americans—not for others", and "China is operating the Panama Canal... we're taking it back, or something very powerful is going to happen."

Panama's President Mulino directly refuted this, stating, "Once again, President Trump is lying. The Panama Canal is not in the process of being restored, and this is certainly not the task that was even discussed... The Canal is Panamanian and will continue to be Panamanian!"

Conclusion: Trump's claim that the U.S. is "reclaiming" the Panama Canal is factually incorrect in the context of current events. The Panama Canal has been under Panamanian sovereignty since the Torrijos-Carter Treaties of 1977, with full control transferred to Panama in 1999. The U.S. is not "taking back" the canal, nor is there any legal or operational basis for such a claim in this instance.

Trump's assertion that "China is operating the Panama Canal" is also misleading. The Panama Canal itself is managed and operated by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), an autonomous Panamanian government agency.

CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong-based company owned and operated the Balboa and Cristobal ports via Panama Ports Company until the recent sale to Black Rock.

Conclusion: China never owned or controlled the Panama Canal. The canal remains under Panamanian sovereignty. CK Hutchison's operation of the ports near the canal was a commercial activity, not a direct control of the canal, and its connection to China is indirect (via Hong Kong's status). Trump's framing exaggerates China's role, which Panama and experts (e.g., web result 3) have clarified as a misrepresentation.

Black Rock, a U.S.-based investment firm, led a consortium (including Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment) to acquire an 80% stake in Hutchison Ports, including the Balboa and Cristobal ports, from CK Hutchison for $22.8 billion.

However, this deal does not involve the U.S. government "taking back" the canal or its operations. It is a private-sector investment by Black Rock and its partners, not a governmental or national reclamation. The U.S. government is not profiting from Black Rock's acquisition, as the deal is a private transaction between Black Rock's consortium and CK Hutchison.

Just seven weeks into Reality-TV Donny's second term . . . and the lies are flowing. I wonder what else is a lie? Oh wait, there is his threat toward BRICS, and his yet unspoken promise to fund Musk's SpaceX trip to Mars. Stay tuned . . . .

[CCarl]

DOGE is NOT saving taxpayers $2 trillion, even tho' that is how it's promoted.

As a Democrat in '08 & '12 Musk funded Obama. Obama said thanks, & taxpayers financed Tesla, making it bigger then the next five auto manufacturers combined.

Now a Republican, Musk funded Trump in '24. Musk says his SpaceX budget to Mars is as much as $10 trillion. Trump will say thanks, & taxpayers will finance SpaceX trips to Mars.


DOGE is the scam to divert the necessary tax dollars to SpaceX. Taxpayers will never know. Do not expect to see refunds, or balanced budgets.

[CCarl]

BRICS and Bluster From the Oval Office

BRICS is an acronym that refers to the nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is a newer economic organization, formed in 2001 by those five countries, and is used to regulate international trade and investment. In 2025, it has the support of many more countries, as we see below.

Recent headlines are telling us that Trump feels threatened by BRICS. You know Trump, when he feels threatened he acts out like a spoiled eight-year old brat on the school playground. Here are a few of his arrogant comments from November 2024, repeated most recently the end of January.

"The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar, while we stand by and watch, is OVER."
"We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.
"They can go find another sucker Nation. There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, or anywhere else, and any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America".

Excuse me? How are sovereign, foreign countries organizing a new trade organization suddenly Hostile? Or a threat to the US? Or somehow subject to US jurisdiction? Who in a clear mind sees the US economy as wonderful? Or the US dollar as 'mighty'? And 'no chance'? Hey Donny boy, never say never. I wonder when diplomacy degraded into finger-pointing, whining, and threatening? Maybe when ignorance replaced intelligence as a prerequisite for an honest politician. Honest you ask? These days an honest politician is one who stays bought. But I digress.

Here is a recent backstory to those BRICS headlines:

On February 26th, 2022, the U.S., EU, UK and Canada, agreed to ban a select group of Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, aka SWIFT. The move was intended to cripple Russia's financial system in an effort to pressure Putin into ending his military operations in Ukraine. Seven Russian banks were denied access to SWIFT, initially causing somewhat of a negative impact on the Russian economy, but this move ultimately backfired on the U.S and its allies when, during a BRICS conference, the bloc of BRICS countries introduced BRICS Pay.

This is one of the biggest economic developments of our time, in spite of a spoiled brat's tantrums. For your information, Donny, it isn't limited to the now ten membership BRICS nations. It isn't a few, it is signed onto by 159 out of 195 countries who trade internationally. Read that again Donny, 159 out of 195 countries do not want the inflated and devalued US Dollar to be their only means of international exchange. And read that to include, they do not want to hold large amounts of it in their banking systems. Those 159 countries will have the ability to bypass the SWIFT system entirely, using a BRICS Pay blockchain-based payment platform. Let that sink in for a moment, Donny, more than 3/4 of the countries in the world are now be able to trade in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar.

In addition to the BRICS Pay announcement, Vladimir Putin confirmed that discussions of creating a gold-backed currency, currently named the Unit, are accelerating in an effort to replace the U.S. Dollar as the International Reserve Currency. Development of the Unit will be discussed in the next (2025) BRICS meeting.

And, of course a backstory to the backstory follows in the next post.

[CCarl]

WHAT IS ALL THE HUBBUB ABOUT A WORLD-WIDE RESERVE CURRENCY?

We have to go back to July 1944, when representatives from 44 nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. With World War II still dragging out, they arrived to hammer out an improved financial system for the global economy. Out of that meeting came the Bretton Woods Agreement that would set up the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and, most importantly, a new role for the U.S. dollar as the "international reserve currency." It became the main currency the world uses to trade and save.

The representatives came to the agreement to establish a singular gold-backed currency. At the time the US controlled approximately 60% of the world's gold. So the US Dollar was chosen to be the international reserve currency. The US pledged at Bretton Woods to fix the value of the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce. Other countries then fixed their exchange rates to the dollar, making the dollar the hub of a new investment, trade, and banking system that would closely regulate the production of their currencies to maintain fixed exchange rates between countries to easily facilitate international trade.

That was the foundation of the U.S. vision of postwar free trade, which also involved limiting and controlling tariffs and, among other things, maintaining a balance of trade that would be favorable to the emerging socialist economic system. It didn't quite work out as smoothly as planned, socialist policies never do. As the U.S. started racking up huge budget deficits and running out of its gold reserves in the 1960s, the government found it too expensive to maintain the pledges made at Bretton Woods. And so, on 15 August 1971, the Nixon ended the convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods Agreement to an end, and rendering the dollar a fiat currency. Shortly thereafter, many other countries' fixed currencies also became free-floating, and the subsequent era has been characterized by floating exchange rates.

Floating exchange rates mean the dollar and all other currencies that are not backed by gold or other precious metals, have their values set by a mishmash of political and economic forces, ranging from central bank decisions to the frenetic buying and selling of traders around the world. That bothers the socialist-minded countries around the world, including the US government.

The end of Bretton Woods was formally ratified by the Jamaica Accord in 1976. The accord allows the price of gold to float with respect to the U.S. dollar and other currencies, albeit within a set of agreed constraints. In practice the dollar had been floating in this way since 1971. The Jamaica Accord also made provisions for financial assistance to developing countries representing the Group of Seven (G7) member countries to compensate for lost earnings from the export of primary commodities.

So the original arrangement set at Bretton Woods is long dead, but the dollar still remains the de-facto international reserve currency. That allows the US to continue most of its privilege described earlier, much to the ire of other countries. Why? Because the US uses the dollar's position to establish tariffs and sanctions to control or punish other countries for actions that the US considers adverse. Sovereign people do not like being bossed by foreign countries, do they/we? That is a two-way street, Donny boy.

Donny doesn't care what the leaders of other countries think, nor does he consider what sovereign people of those countries like and dislike. Bretton Woods is dead, the dollar has been nearly inflated to death with over 35 trillion dollars in debt accrued by the US government. Yet, Donny boy believes he can manipulate 159 other countries with his threats and intimidation to keep the dollar as the international reserve currency. America has a Corporate Fascist in the Oval Office who believes the concept of 'might makes right' is more important than the consent of sovereign people.

[CCarl]

TWO AFTERTHOUGHTS ON THE BRICS BROUHAHA

Peter Schiff, who discusses economic and political topics on his podcast "The Peter Schiff Show," pushed back against Trump's threatening BRICS comment last year with this wonderfully concise retort.

"You have the relationship backwards. The BRICS nations are the suckers for accepting our fiat currency for their real consumer goods. We get actual products that make our lives better, that we lack the capacity to produce ourselves. All they get in return is our inflation."

Well said . . . did you hear that, Donny?

And if BRICS countries don't obey Trump, Americans do not get imports that make our lives better, imports of things America no longer manfacturers or grows. Trump's action will hurt Americans. Just who is the sucker nation? Just the nations we trade with?

We are also suckered, when we allow our bought politicians to subvert our free market with monopoly money called Federal Reserve Notes, print a bunch of it, then use it internationally, purposefully to cause inflation and destroy the poor and middle classes. Trump isn't serving us, he is using us.