Trump Pledges to Completely Undermine Confidence in the US Economy

“I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory,” whined Trump to his presidential poster. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes. McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting “Kamala” elected – How did that work out? Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be put ‘out to pasture.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

What a freaking lunatic, man. Now you can start doubting BLS data. Trump has effectively promised to manipulate it for political purposes, because the books he has created with his trade war look horrible. Slowing growth, slowing hiring, and a slight uptick in inflation as tariffs begin to take root have all combined to put the economy on a very uneven standing trending towards the worst thing that can happen to it: stagflation. This is effectively an admission by Trump that he failed to produce a good economy under the rules that grown-ups in the market operate by, and now like with his passion in golf, he can only produce the results he wants by cheating. Of all the infuriatingly annoying things about MAGA, the childlike indignation that we must accept the dumbest lies imaginable as everyone’s objective reality because MAGA’s ideas are too weak to exist in the real world is up near the top.

Stocks rose a little and bond yields fell a bit along with the dollar as soon as Trump pledged to cook some Trump-friendly books, telling you the story the people who actually need this data see right now. The dollar is off to the worst start of the year since 1973, demonstrating the degree he has shook confidence in the core of American power. Trump wants to lower interest rates dramatically, threatening to fire Jerome Powell if he doesn’t do so, and this move by bonds suggests the market sees Trump as a larger influence on the Fed than anyone who understands the importance of the Fed’s independence is comfortable with. While Trump might be able to produce some short-term rosy headlines with his strategy of emulating the worst ideas from the 1970s, as the 1970s demonstrated, inflation doesn’t care one iota what you write down in your books, and when it comes back during periods of low economic growth, you’re tubo-mega-ultra-fucked, policy-wise.

Trump’s hurricane of uncertainty and bad policymaking has very clearly chilled economic growth in 2025, per all the economic figures to come out so far in 2025. Trump doesn’t like that, so going forward, we know that the figures put out by the government aren’t real. As the 2008 Great Financial Crisis demonstrated, fraud does work for a little while, but when the music stops and everyone wakes up one day and realizes that they don’t know what anything is actually worth, the only path left is outright panic and full-blown economic calamity, and Trump is doing everything he can to guarantee that future to us.