The Future Isn’t Written in Stone

Image source: stablediffusion.com

The Future isn’t Written in Stone - some things to bear in mind in the coming months/years

This is not going to be a pie in the sky feel good piece, but it is offered to anyone who wants to consider that while democracy has taken a critical body blow, there may be reason for some slivers of hope here and there. No silver linings; but maybe some larger scale obstacles to Trump and Project 2025 getting their wish list filled.

Once again, Trump’s appointments gear toward the unqualified and ludicrous. Once again, he’s stacking his advisory board with billionaires and his BFF Elon is at the head of the line. However, many of those billionaires come from the petroleum industry and yes, that’s terrifying and bad in ways I shouldn’t have to describe; but Elon is all about pushing through alternative energy. He’s touted the idea of a fossil fuel free future (as well as relocating to Mars because we’ve trashed Mother Earth), and were this any other crackpot in Trump’s orbit, I’d raise an eyebrow. 

As it is, I’m still raising one. Arguably, Musk has more buying power than many of the other guys in the room. And unless he really is the idiot he’s been making himself out to be, it won’t really matter, but I have to think that he’s been jockeying this entire time to push through his Tech Bro Agenda and might actually be able to do some unwitting good with it.

At the very least, I can see Musk v. Big Oil discussions in the Oval Office and it’s entirely possible he could come out on top of some of those discussions if he pushes for the amount of job creation would occur if, say, he began to seriously develop the tech that he’s basically beta tested with Tesla and SkyLink. Second, and I don’t think he’s motivated this way, but if he were to make deals with the Petro Boys to open up R&D resources for them to transition away from further fossil fuel drilling, this would be his other win. 

Could this happen? I’m not holding my breath, but I’m open to being surprised.

I’ll be going deeper into tariffs this week, but for now, those are far from a done deal. The business sector knows very well what tariffs would mean to the economy. While corporations are price-gouging the public despite inflation going down, tariffs would inflate prices, cost of living, and exacerbate a housing crisis already under way. Sure, Trump has promised to lower prices, but that’s hardly a concern for him. Businesses can push the envelope as far as they have, but there’s a threshold over which they can’t go or risk sparking off, hey, inflation. They also can’t lower prices too far or they set off deflation. There is a sweet spot, but it means that the business moguls are going to have to recognized it to keep their margins healthy and maintain market integrity. 

I don’t really think Trump knows shit about what tariffs are or how they’re implemented. I think someone mentioned McKinley to him and convinced him tariffs are a great idea, but I don’t think Trump ever heard the word until a couple of months ago. Would this mean tariffs are off the table? I’m hoping so. As I say, I’ll have more to blather about tariffs in a couple of days, but again, I can’t too happy because, of course, Trump is going to push through more tax cuts. 

Tax cuts, as the Trump administration levies them, are meaningless for anyone without a stock portfolio, substantial property, or relatively large capital holdings. For the rest of us, the retired and living on Social Security or the 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, let alone the rest who are living in even more precarious circumstances, tax cuts are shit. They’re irrelevant. 

This Is all part of that strain of weird libertarianism that would rather just get rid of government completely. However, if you do that - and we’ll see how it goes this time, again - you’ll wind up with depleted tax revenues, cities gong broke very quickly, infrastructure that will continue to crumble and on and on and on. Here’s where the braintrust comes in and says “privatize everything”! 

Sigh. Privatization is the quickest way to re-establisha a feudal society and because there will be no oversight, no regulations, then what are communities going to do when potholes are fixed half-assed and with lousy, cheap materials? Where is consumer protection/advocacy going to be if a private power generator goes down and, I don’t know, a hospital goes offline and people; die? Dark? Sure, because the idiots who constantly say “the market will correct itself” are very often idiots who haven’t studied economics or political science. If they did, then they slept through their classes.

So there are two areas where the Trump administration may run into serious roadblocks from within. I think there will definitely be obstacles to his roll-out on deportation, and very likely, I suspect he’s going to disappoint his Evangelical base when he can’t (won’t?) push through their National Ban on Abortion. He has assembled a confederation of Tech Bros, oligarchs, and fundamentalists. None of these people have any right to be near government, much less in it to this degree. However, I do think this is going to set up a shit show of no small proportion and might result in at least, gridlock on Trumpian policies. 

I’ll grab my popcorn.