We’ve been too busy to write much lately (there’s plenty of stuff coming though) but meanwhile our friend (me and Jim Washburn’s friend) Greg Antoniono wrote this dark and probably very correct view of how the terrible Mumps (Diamond’s shorthand for the unholy coupling of Musk & Trump) are driving our economy into a landfill, and what it will likely mean to you and me, so without further ado here’s Greg A.:
I doubt anyone cares what I think on the topic …
But the economy is gonna crash, hard. Musk knows this. He intends it! [He referenced it before the election as something of a “necessity.” This is no accident.]
Thousands and thousands will be unemployed. Every one of those Federal workers bought food, paid for rent, paid for all of the services and things needed to maintain a basic lifestyle. [The stock market lost over 700 points on Friday, and is on a downward trend. This will continue. Consumer confidence – a key measure of economic health, and a guide to major corporations in planning, is down by 5.4 points. Retailer Joann is closing all of its 800 stores. Starbucks is laying off 1100. I know of one Fortune 30 company that will be laying off 5-7% – about 7500 – of their staff imminently.]
That spigot of money got turned off by Musk. Some of the laid-off Federal employees will rebound, but many won’t. And there will be many, many more layoffs.
Which means all of the things that they bought won’t get bought. So – first discretionary items will go. Home repair projects: gone. Vacations: gone. Presents for holidays and birthdays: gone. Trips to Starbucks … mid-tier and up restaurants: gone.
So those industries will have layoffs. So, now we have layoffs on top of layoffs. (While tariffs increase prices. So inflation while the economy shrinks – basically, it’ll be a lot like 1973-1982 for those of you who remember that party.)
So, the Federal sector (the lever that FDR used to save America from the Great Depression, and whose expansion helped the enormous middle-class prosperity of the 1960s) will shrink and will be very unlikely to grow. And Trump’s witless theory that lowering interest rates will help him is nonsense. Because the stock market will tank (this has already started.)
Chris Riddell, from the Guardian
If Trump thinks he has a plan, I will tell you who has a more complex plan: the Economy. Nixon was a genius – however much one hates him, he was very intelligent. He was a child of the Depression and of the New Deal, and he remembered the bread lines, the failure of his family’s store in Yorba Linda, and the hard times they lived through. He HATED unemployment. To counter-attack the rising numbers, Nixon ran the presses and created easy money (more or less Trump’s plan). What that did (and Nixon didn’t have tariffs – he had other issues that were sort of similar to tariffs – the oil embargo, upward pressure on wages because of unions) was to effectively throw gas on the fire that was the economy – it created an upward inflationary spiral.
This will happen again. It is predictable. Actions have consequences. One cannot elude gravity, nor can one elude basic economic principles.
One-time stimulus checks will help somewhat, and Trump and Musk do love throwing candy around like they’re Huey Long on a bender, giving everyone a chicken in every pot. But they can only do that a little. And the people who need that money the most – it won’t be enough.
And more bad news. Banks will fail. Three reasons: First, unemployed people will not have enough money to pay their mortgages. Second, and relatedly, banks – since 2008 – have been loathe to do anything to cool off the very hot housing market. So while investors have been artificially keeping demand high and prices high, normal folks were forced (due to economic necessity) to obtain loans with 5% down. And the banks were fine with this.
So many borrowers have little skin in the game, especially as home values fall.
Dumb.
Because, once the downward spiral happens, many honest-hardworking people will be underwater on their homes. And why stick around when your home is worth less that the mortgage, and the new job you want (or the better potential opportunities) are in another town? Or you are moving back into the family home? Or whatever you’re doing to save you and your family from hardship?
And third – and you’ll like this one the most – fake “Small Government” types like Trump and Musk are very, very unlikely to bail out the banks. Or people defaulting on homes.
So, when the dust settles, we’ll have high unemployment, high inflation, a shrinking economy, and more foreclosed and short-sold homes snapped up by the investment sector! (Because in an economy like that, would you buy stocks or bonds? ESPECIALLY if Trump controls the Fed and they lower interest rates as he demands.)
As Dylan sang, “There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend.” And the name of the train is “economic disaster.”
HAVE AT IT, my pretties!
WE DIDN’T START THE EATON FIRE! This piece is from the Fucking News. No, seriously, “The Fucking News” on Substack. By Jonathan Larsen, and hat-tip to John Earl for passing it on. Here’s the first few paragraphs:
“If a Palestinian or a Tesla protester had killed 17 people and destroyed 9,414 buildings, causing an estimated $10 billion in damages, it’d probably be a pretty big story when they were identified and caught.
“And yet, while newspapers and online news outlets are reporting on new lawsuits identifying the alleged perpetrators of January’s Eaton Fire — the worst of the wildfires that may be the most costly “natural” disaster in American history — TV news is remarkably free of the kind of coverage it lavished on Luigi Mangione for (allegedly) killing one people and destroying zero buildings in his (alleged) fight against profit margins.
“The new lawsuits allege that the perpetrator of the Eaton Fire is Southern California Edison (SCE), a corporate entity driven by profit margins and kind of a person according to too many politicians. Here’s the evidence, as laid out in lawsuits from Los Angeles County and others, as well as by those meddling kids at the New York Times.
“A series of videos obtained by the Times shows the progression from an arcing power line at the site of three SCE electrical towers on Jan. 7, 2025, into the kind of situation that Smokey the Bear would blame on careless hikers and campers:…”
And then there are a bunch of videos of these fire-causing electric arcs, and a bunch more hard-hitting writing. Read the rest on THE FUCKING NEWS: https://thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/we-didnt-start-the-eaton-fire
Perhaps of Interest –
https://youtu.be/EXwT_7HVmys?si=VNxBy6dDtYKr9usu
Mistrial on Judge Ferguson case. 11-1 in favor of conviction.
The OC Press Club is dead.
Icymi proud oc county republicans like Willie the Weenie, Sheriff Don Barnes and Supervisor Don Wagner endorsed racist, business license and tax scofflaw James Mai for council members in Irvine last election cycle.
https://jamesmai.com/endorsements/
So I am staring at a host of OC Politicos and building trade union members (check out the billboard on 57 North at Chapman) at the lunch spot. I’m telling you, it’s not the Varsity,
I am going exaggerate a reaction to Vern and Donna’s filthy mailers and tease them about you and Donna having an orgy with Cecil and Jeanie Robbins, with Cynthia fluffing.
I’ll report back before next council.
This is the sort of thing we get from this person nearly every day for several years now, and we trash it.
Of course Donna and I have never sent out any “mailers.” If anybody got something pretending to be from us (in the last four years) please contact me.
I got one snail mailed to my house a few weeks ago. It even mentioned my name.
The sender is going to a lot of trouble to accomplish nothing, indicating a diseased and obsessed rat trap of a personality.
My first thought was this is from a cop with nothing but a shriveled up brain stem. And it’s most likely an Anaheim cop.
It’s actually been going on for a lot longer than Vern suggests, although the mailers and appropriation of the name didn’t start until a few years ago.
I was talking about the mailers, not all the obscene blog comments. (And apparently mailed objects too.)
And you’re referring to the appropriation of the name “Tito Watch” from an old author of ours. Yeah right, like this illiterate pervert could have written any of those Tito Ortiz articles.
I thought of a better analogy than what I used before. These are the sorts of people who, as schoolkids, would revel in putting a finger towards you eyeball and then exult “made you flinch!” Woo-hoo. Of course they have to do this from the cloak of anonymity, because otherwise that finger would not be in good shape.
I got another letter Vern.
You guys really attract the cream of crop when it comes to blog participants.
Just be happy that you’re not the worst, even if you’re the pushiest.
Attracting people who would like to disrupt what we do here is somewhat of a badge of honor. I only wish that we had enough time and resources to do it as much as we’d like to.
You make a good case that it isn’t, but the time to challenge that designation has long passed.
It’s doesn’t make him any less of a charlatan now does it??
He isn’t threatening me with a defamations suit. That’s for sure. So there is that.
Dc Dems are dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. They should have gone all public enemy and shut it down. But, instead, no resistance. Now factions are at each other’s necks. I hope Schumer is greeted rudely on his upcoming book tour (like the Jewish Zionists treated President Carter on his). Embed that.
https://youtu.be/LXCrkY5WNA0
Flashback Friday!
https://www.newsweek.com/carters-book-tour-hell-103777
We agree on this one. This was a time to avoid complicity — and if Trump would have had more authority to make cuts, at least he alone would have owned them.
Unfortunately, opposing Schumer during his “book on anti-Semitism” book tour will be deemed an act of anti-Semitism.
I’m sure there will be dissent were ever his tour takes him.
May it turn into a series of raucous town halls. Even if the book wasn’t about anti-semitism, any blowback would likely be framed as anti-semitism.
https://www.threads.net/@gigiscrazi_rn/post/DHL0k4apRVS
(Baltimore>DC>DC>Santa Monica>Atlanta)
Anyone protesting Schumer will be chloroformed and wake up in a prison in El Salvador. That’s the deal* they cut.
*Of course it isn’t. But “dictator only on day one” is being used in the biblical sense of the creation story in Genisis.
Why would you delete the article about kuo??
W’happen?
Here is the VOC’s good article about Kuo. Shady as any Irvine republican, but I have no hope of anyone beating him next month.
https://voiceofoc.org/2025/03/is-an-irvine-city-council-candidate-a-businessman-or-government-employee/
This guy and Bilodeau point to a complete ethical lapse at the County. Somehow both these boys get paid (a helluva lot) for day jobs while they are supposedly doing other things.
At one time Bilodeau got six figures working for Nelson, was getting a stipend from the City of Orange for being on the City Council, from the OCWD as a boardmember attending their footling and unrecorded committees, and was getting $40K as Nelson’s little helper at the ACMD. All supposedly during a 40 hour work week. This was, and is looktheotherway fraud.
Do you know the phrase “it’s not anything you did”? Notice its absence from my reply.
Look, you can be a valuable contributor to this site. But you often choose a different path.
I don’t understand the kuo/khan connection. But there is one.
We had a great Anaheim Dems Club meeting Thursday night, with two special guest speakers – Chris Kluwe and Ali Taj. I’ll try to get a video up in the next day or two.
Ali is more serious than I thought last week, and he just got the endorsement of Senator Adam Schiff (as well as SQS.) His website’s out now. https://ali4assembly.com/
He’s raised hundreds of thousands more than his Democrat opponent, and I was able to add that he’s “the only candidate in the race not to vote to take away this Club’s charter!” I could have gone on but I didn’t.
Clockwise: Club President Steve White, Chris Kluwe, Vern Nelson, Mayor Ali Taj, Sgt. Paras.
Wow I read his story and he seems incredibly impressive. What are your thoughts on him and his platform?
All of a sudden the DPOC is asking for the censure of a politician re racist remarks. They were silent re Farrah Khan. Florice has no business condemning anyone about being a racist.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHO4bUezueA/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
What Bullockus said at the meeting (invoking society’s stereotypical view of Twain’s character of N____ Jim) was a bad choice, to which she had plenty of alternatives. I disagree with her on education policy, but I’m more impressed that she enjoyed a book I might not have expected her to like than that she said something hurtful.
What sent my head spinning from the VOC article was a comment by my charming former friend Gila Jones, who serves on the Capo Unified Board. (For sentiment’s sake, I wish it had come from someone else — but it demands comment.)
Yes, what’s in plainface font is a good point, with which I (and I expect Bullockus) would agree. But the part I put in boldface is jarring.
Exactly what does Gila Jones think that a student would be likely enough to do to her for her to say that she “might not get out alive”?
Why does she hold this view? Is it based on anything she has read or experienced about the countless times that high school teachers have read Huckleberry Finn out loud to their students? Does she know of any teacher fatalities? Any serious injuries? Anything less serious slaps in the face?
I recognize that this is hyperbolic overstatement used to emphasize the seriousness of such an infraction. But while Bullockus clearly does not hold or endorse the stereotype that Black students are dumb and violent brutes, Gila Jones’s comments actually depends on our understanding and agreeing that at least some students (presumably black ones) are violent brutes who might not be able to control their physical expression of anger if someone used a phrase that they have heard many times before — and that is all over the book everyone thinks is worth student’s reading (and in some cases enduring — to the point of actually committing murder!) The statement (or quip, whatever she might call it), whether or not she believes it, reinforces a seriously and consequentially harmful stereotype of Black students. In my opinion, this statement to the VOC was actually worse than what Bullockus did! I won’t bother asking Florice to have DPOC condemn it, but I will ask Gila Jones (unless is was a misquote) to admit saying it while at the next Board meeting, explain what she was thinking, explain why it was wrong, admit responsibility for it, apologize, and try to make amends for a classic example of the concept of “implicit bias” (that the Trump Administration claims not to exist.) And I guess I should also add that I call on Black students (and adults) not to physically attack or murder her, as she apparently may be worried they might do if offended.
I’m sorry that I had to miss it, but having not sought membership in the Anaheim Dems Club this year I am distancing myself from it so that it doesn’t suffer from Florice’s animosity towards me. This is one that I really would have liked to see.
I’ll add a joke I would have told if I had been there:
Greg asked me to attach the image of the above Florice statement:
Greg here: Posting the image here is not intended as an endorsement of its contents (nor is it a condemnation.) As I wrote in my comment above, Florice went to great lengths to create an Instagram post that has text that no one can copy directly. Presuming that making it impossible to copy was simple negligence on her part, I want to let people see it far and wide. To be as fair as possible, I’ll do the same for her strongly worded criticism of Gila Jones saying that if she ever said the “N-word” (used repeatedly in the book their having students read) in front of a student, she “might end up dead.” (Because “those angry out-of-control students,” right?) Any day now, I expect.
Oh, now I feel better.
Yeah, it looks dumb down here on its own. I think Greg wanted me to add it as an illustration to Eric’s lampooning of Florice above, but we can’t add pictures to other people’s comments the way we used to. Maybe I’ll take it down.
No, leave it up. She went to great lengths to create an Instagram post that one can’t copy dir4ectly, and presuming that this was simple negligence on her part we want to let people see it far and wide. To be as fair as possible, I’ll do the same for her strongly worded criticism of what Gila Jones said. Any day now, I expect.
Did I mention that Bullockus is in favor of giving public funds to private (I think it was specifically religious) schools? There’s the tiniest of possibilities that that is what this is really about. If so, I agree with the opposition, but not with the disingenuity.
By the way, if I were still in DPOC I would tell them to raise money for their own charter schools that would teach kids the truth being hidden from other curriculum. I’d probably get a small smattering of votes not to table it indefinitely.
I can neither confirm nor deny that Stanton Vice Mayor ate his chief of staff in the same fashion as a murderous Hamster would.
Could you be more cryptic? I can still tell what the official in what city you’re talking about. Go read gossip columns and learn how to write a decent blind item.
Schumer flinches. Proving he is no Jimmy Carter. Or, that he is a coward.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/17/schumer-postpones-book-tour-over-security-concerns-00232634
His plan is to back down on something previously thought to be very important to him at least once each week. We’ll see if he can keep it up: I think he can!
There was a suicide at lamoreaux justice center on Friday afternoon in the parking structure. No report of it anywhere.
You found out about it somewhere. Where? You (or one of us, could put in a call to the Sheriff-Coroner’s office and ask for details.
Apparently the Irvine city council meeting turned into a proper shit show last night during agenda item 5.4 with the council members at each others throats.
Care to tell us what that item was about? We are way too busy to look up an Irvine agenda.
And how’d the shitshow break down? And who behaved most shittily?
A real OC hero hangs up his guns… but I bet we haven’t heard the last of Scott Sanders!
Really good Saavedra piece:
https://www.dailynews.com/2025/03/30/public-defender-scott-sanders-who-upended-ocs-legal-landscape-retires-after-32-years/
Jeez I guess we need a new Open Thread… Been busy with my concert coming up (the 12th) and the next Anaheim Dems Club meeting (the 10th, possibly the last one using the Democrats name) – which’ll feature Assembly candidate Jessie Lopez, Supervisor candidate Connor Traut, and members of the OC Youth Movement. But meanwhile I’m putting up videos from our last two meetings. Here’s Chris Kluwe (coming up – Ali Taj, Fred Jung.)