The old man behind the counter didn’t give a shit. He rang up the beer, the smokes, the stale pretzels, punched the total into the register with fingers that had long since stopped caring. Prices had gone up again. They always did. He’d seen it before, a hundred times, a thousand, ever since some suited bastard figured out that the best way to “help” the economy was to strangle the poor man’s wallet and call it a victory.
This time it was tariffs. Big, dumb, blaring tariffs. A war waged with taxes, the kind that don’t hit the enemy but land squarely on the backs of the people who never asked for it in the first place. But try explaining that to a politician. Try explaining that when you slap a tax on imported goods, the only people paying for it are the ones at the bottom. The man stocking shelves at the supermarket, the woman trying to afford a tank of gas, the old-timer with an oxygen tank who just wants to drink his goddamn coffee without noticing it’s gone up twenty cents again.
Trump strutted around, all swagger and self-importance, talking about trade imbalances like a drunk at the bar explaining why the bartender owes him a free shot. America was losing, he said. We were getting screwed, he said. And his brilliant solution? Make everything cost more. Genius. Fucking genius.
Steel. Aluminum. Electronics. Food. A punch in the gut to anyone who ever needed to buy something—which, last I checked, was everyone. And while the price tags rose, the wages didn’t. They never do. The worker doesn’t get a raise just because his groceries cost more. He just gets poorer. But don’t worry, they told him. This is good for America. The factories will come back. The jobs will return. Any day now. Just hold on.
Meanwhile, overseas, the rest of the world wasn’t sitting around waiting to be bullied. No, they had their own ideas. China slapped tariffs back. Farmers who used to sell their crops overseas watched them rot in silos. Manufacturers lost contracts. Exports shrank. The whole thing spiraled downward, a slow-motion economic suicide with a flag draped over it.
And when it all started to hurt too much, when the businesses complained and the numbers didn’t look so hot, what did the government do? They threw subsidies at the very industries they’d just kneecapped. That’s how it always works. First, they break your legs. Then, they offer you a crutch and tell you how generous they are. But a crutch isn’t a cure. It’s just a slow, painful limping toward an inevitable collapse.
The real joke? The “big win” never came. No wave of new factories, no golden age of American industry rising from the ashes. Just empty speeches and bank accounts running dry. Because the one truth that no politician ever wants to admit is this: you cannot cheat the market. You cannot legislate wealth into existence. Trade is not a war. It’s a negotiation, an exchange, a delicate balance that takes years to build and seconds to destroy.
And Trump? He never built anything. He just burned things down. Called it victory. Let everyone else choke on the smoke.
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Mar 20, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1902636284319035557?t=sGmb4osOX_DuyFaYQRDWoA&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2707
This time it was tariffs. Big, dumb, blaring tariffs. A war waged with taxes, the kind that don’t hit the enemy but land squarely on the backs of the people who never asked for it in the first place. But try explaining that to a politician. Try explaining that when you slap a tax on imported goods, the only people paying for it are the ones at the bottom. The man stocking shelves at the supermarket, the woman trying to afford a tank of gas, the old-timer with an oxygen tank who just wants to drink his goddamn coffee without noticing it’s gone up twenty cents again.
Trump strutted around, all swagger and self-importance, talking about trade imbalances like a drunk at the bar explaining why the bartender owes him a free shot. America was losing, he said. We were getting screwed, he said. And his brilliant solution? Make everything cost more. Genius. Fucking genius.
Steel. Aluminum. Electronics. Food. A punch in the gut to anyone who ever needed to buy something—which, last I checked, was everyone. And while the price tags rose, the wages didn’t. They never do. The worker doesn’t get a raise just because his groceries cost more. He just gets poorer. But don’t worry, they told him. This is good for America. The factories will come back. The jobs will return. Any day now. Just hold on.
Meanwhile, overseas, the rest of the world wasn’t sitting around waiting to be bullied. No, they had their own ideas. China slapped tariffs back. Farmers who used to sell their crops overseas watched them rot in silos. Manufacturers lost contracts. Exports shrank. The whole thing spiraled downward, a slow-motion economic suicide with a flag draped over it.
And when it all started to hurt too much, when the businesses complained and the numbers didn’t look so hot, what did the government do? They threw subsidies at the very industries they’d just kneecapped. That’s how it always works. First, they break your legs. Then, they offer you a crutch and tell you how generous they are. But a crutch isn’t a cure. It’s just a slow, painful limping toward an inevitable collapse.
The real joke? The “big win” never came. No wave of new factories, no golden age of American industry rising from the ashes. Just empty speeches and bank accounts running dry. Because the one truth that no politician ever wants to admit is this: you cannot cheat the market. You cannot legislate wealth into existence. Trade is not a war. It’s a negotiation, an exchange, a delicate balance that takes years to build and seconds to destroy.
And Trump? He never built anything. He just burned things down. Called it victory. Let everyone else choke on the smoke.
S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Mar 20, 2025
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1902636284319035557?t=sGmb4osOX_DuyFaYQRDWoA&s=19
https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2707
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