One of my favorite economists, Paul Krugman, has abandoned his New York Times column after 20 plus years. He has, however, continued his daily subscriber letter, which I receive, and in a recent one, he addressed the embarrassing pre-Christmas clown show that threatened to shut down the government. He titled the essay–quite appropriately–“The Chaos Monkeys Have Already Taken Over the Zoo.”
In an earlier Times piece, written before passage of the last-ditch, last-minute deal to keep government over, Krugman had written
Speaker Mike Johnson (soon to be ex-speaker?) is scrambling to put a budget deal together to avoid a government shutdown tomorrow. What a Holiday Gift from President Musk and First Laddy Trump. More at The NY Times here.
They couldn’t even wait till January to unleash the chaos. Classic hubris — too bad the country and the world are within the blast radius.
One more thing. Assuming Johnson is unable to remain Speaker in the next Congress, the days and weeks it might take the GOP to select a new ‘leader’ might take them past the deadline to certify the election.
(I hadn’t considered that possibility, and quite probably, neither did the congressional monkeys, aka “the usual suspects.” An inability to certify Trump’s election, brought on by the most MAGA members of the House, would have been..interesting…)
Krugman was far from the only observer who pointed out that the reasons “President Musk” gave for torpedoing the initial bipartisan measure were mostly bogus. His enumeration of the items in the measure he found unacceptable included a number that weren’t actually included in the measure. (I’m sure everyone reading this is shocked by the revelation that Musk is happy to depart from the truth when it serves his purposes…) A number of reports have zeroed in on what was apparently the real reason he wanted to kill the measure.
In a Friday letter to congressional leaders, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) claimed Musk derailed the deal that would have avoided a government shutdown “in order to protect his wallet and the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of American workers, innovators and businesses.”
The spending agreement released Tuesday included a bipartisan provision to limit and screen U.S. investments in China, among dozens of other proposals attached to the 1,500-page bill.
As the CEO and largest stockholder in Tesla, Musk has extensive business connections to China. The company operates a major manufacturing plant in Shanghai and has sought to build deeper connections with Chinese companies.
Interestingly, although the final bill did not include Trump’s demand to scrap the debt ceiling, it did omit the provision that would have curtailed Musk’s business with China. Musk evidently had more clout with lawmakers than Trump–quite possibly because he has ample resources to fund his threat to primary any legislators who failed to knuckle under.
What is most stunning about this particular “Chaos monkeys” episode is that the entire fiasco was triggered by a man with no official government authority–a man who has never submitted himself to the electorate, who has never received a single vote– yet clearly considers himself a co-President, and just as clearly, intends to use the considerable power of his purse to protect his personal financial interests, if need be, at the expense of the American public’s interests.
Musk is by far the richest of Trump’s proposed governing cabal, but he’s not the only billionaire, nor is he the only one who will bring multiple conflicts of interest to a designated role. The grifter-in-chief proposes to surround himself with other rich men (almost all of his designees are White “Christian” males) who are equally ignorant of government operations and constitutional constraints. They are clearly unconcerned about what policies might be in the national interest. Their first impulses will be to protect their own sources of wealth (or, in the case of RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, to impose their loony-tunes worldviews on the country.)
The dictionary defines Kakistocracy as “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state,” and Corporatism as economic control by powerful corporate interests.
I think we’re there.
Chaos monkeys … It’s so appropriate. Small brain cases, lacking any grace and throwing “stuff” at passers by. Perfect.
One can only wonder how long the “chaos” will last before it descends – as it must – into the internecine disaster that awaits us all. The bottom of their cage will be covered with their “stuff” and the dead bodies from those who didn’t obey. “Animal Farm” was just written a few decades too early.
“The dictionary defines Kakistocracy as “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state,” and Corporatism as economic control by powerful corporate interests.”
This could be the State of the Union speech for the next four years.
Trump has failed at every venture that he has undertaken. Why? Because he is not a competent manager. He is only a celebrity and has been since birth. He is his mentor, Roy Cohen, without a law degree.
He was desperate to stay out of jail, and the only card left to play was to sell his soul to Elon Musk, the wealthiest and poorest man in the world, rich in currency, as inadequate as Donald Trump is morally.
They now define the country for the rest of the world.
Johnson voted for the House rule allowing anyone to call for the removal of the Speaker for any reason…real or imagined. Trump has not yet been inaugurated and moved into the White Castle but; is anyone anywhere in House or Senate considering the fact that our tax dollars will be paying the high salaries of his mega-millionaire and billionaire crony appointees? How quickly will Trump raise salaries of his Cabinet and administration when they move into office?
The bogus shutdown battle, which should have been expected as Republican Standard Order of Business is behind us. Trump’s 2025 revolving door policy lies ahead; if he gets his way expanding his Continental Untied (not an error) States of America, who will design our new required flag.
“The dictionary defines Kakistocracy as “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state,” and Corporatism as economic control by powerful corporate interests.”
There two things that must happen to prevent another Trump. First, a law that prevents campaigning until 15 months before the presidential election. Trump had the media in his palm for nearly 4 years – drumming lies into people. Second, there must be election campaign reform. Money bought this election and money is buying even more power and influence with Trump. Imagine how it feels to have spent your life studying foreign relations or climbing the diplomatic ladder then have the rug swept out from under you. There has always been a spoils system but now a spoiled man continues to punk his own electorate.
A televised report recently reported that MOST Americans have pulled back from watching political news. About 3/4 of D’s and 2/3 of R’s have had enough political news. The Trump show has already ground us all down. This seems significant. As the shit show begins, America has tuned out
Krugman is an establishment economist, so he has never been one of my favorites. Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Hudson, and Richard Wolff are much more interesting. They are economists but also intellectuals.
Marco Rubio and the rest of the anti-China crowd in Washington spread lie after lie about China and have been doing so for several years. Even the DP has joined in the lies all because they are preparing for war to support Taiwan’s independence (actually, it’s so the MIC can make more money). They know China will retaliate, so they must prepare for that event.
Speaking toward our chaos monkeys, I spent a couple of hours yesterday researching Truth Social, Trump’s retaliatory media company, for getting banned by Facebook and Twitter (pre-Musk). It took me on quite a journey that escaped the limelight during the pre-election discussions. There is plenty of chaos at that company, as Devin Nunes is paid $750,000 as CEO at a company that has not yet turned a profit, and Trump’s Truth Social is worth billions of dollars. There are lawsuits galore, Russian investors, Cayman money transfers, more lawsuits, SEC violations, outsourcing to Mexican coders, internal whistleblowers, etc.
Sound familiar?
It should be on the front pages of every newspaper, but it’s not. Imagine that!
Especially considering that Trump needs to divest due to a serious conflict of interest. But why is the media so silent about it? ProPublica was the primary source of investigative journalism. The other lightweight copycat articles are behind paywalls. 😉
I also see that this morning, Musk and Vivek have caused quite a stir with the MAGA crowd by using work VISAs to recruit engineers for their businesses. This goes against the “American worker-first” rhetoric spewed by Trump to his supporters. Truth Social outsources work to Mexico, and who believes that Trump doesn’t hire legal and illegal immigrants at his resorts, hotels, and golf courses?
Another comment: I look forward to seeing what Kennedy and Gabbard do in their posts. I was also eager to see what Obama would do, but he was an epic failure. My expectations bar is set really low for them.
Clearly tfg has been caught in his own trap. He is notoriously transactional, always expecting something in return for any transaction/favor/gift he bestows. The (musk)rat is the same. Not only is tfg a poor man by comparison to the rat, but he is an man in rapid mental decline, easily manipulated by those who recognize his weaknesses. The rat has no problem manipulating him as he owns him, body and soul.
The rat has aspirations of world domination. The punkinhead is just another tool in the box to him.
The fools who aspire to ultimate power are themselves tools of the richest man in the world.
If things are to be changed to replace any semblance of guardrails, it will only happen with revolt, violent or passive.
PatMcc – given up, amused to death, whatever…it creates the free pass…
Musk spent $250M+ to save tfg from being sent to prison and certainly didn’t do that out of the goodness of his heart. Musk is already our next President and I can’t even begin to imagine the massive amount of damage he will cause to our country.
Putin sits in Moscow giggling and licking his chops. I don’t doubt that the chaos monkeys are doing better than he hoped for. Meanwhile, he’s also considering expanding Russian power, according to Heather Cox Richardson’s post this morning: Ukraine isn’t enough; they’re now eyeballing Alaska, Hawaii, and—wait for it!—California! According to his strategists, the only reasonable way to avoid future world wars is to divide the globe into “spheres of power.” I’m sure president musk-rat would have his finger in every pie.
Meanwhile, with all this chaos (mishigoss!), I appreciated the chuckle I got from Krugman’s article: First Laddy! Indeed!
The Other Sheila, don’t forget Trump now wants to buy Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal. None of them are listed for sale, but why would that stop Trump and his Tech Bros?
The worst part is that Trump has offspring, and Musk has enough kids to field a football team.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-greenland-norway-panama-canal-canada-a52858e3075f9b5ad95e78753293fc1f
Todd, read Krugman today. I don’t always agree with him, but he nails a very important phenomenon that few understand at the moment.
Coming to this late, today, after some days of absence around the holidays.
Trump and chaos will soon be seen to be identical.