34 votes

Critics ask if US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are 'intentionally crashing the economy', as described in the book Disaster Capitalism and seen in the transition from the USSR to Russia

Posted by boxer_dogs_dance
Tags: politics.usa, usa, republican party, presidents, donald trump, elon musk, economics, economy, policy.trade, tariffs, capitalism.disaster, books, history, russia, soviet union, author.brett wilkins, source.commondreams
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-musk-intentionally-crashing-economy

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Title
Critics Ask If Trump and Musk Are 'Intentionally Crashing the Economy' | Common Dreams
Published
Mar 6 2025
Word count
2555 words

7 comments

  1. [4]
    Minori
    Link
    Nah, Trump has been a true believer in tariffs for a long time. He's actually that stupid. We'll see if he makes free trade popular again and helps people learn why economics isn't zero sum.

    Nah, Trump has been a true believer in tariffs for a long time. He's actually that stupid. We'll see if he makes free trade popular again and helps people learn why economics isn't zero sum.

    14 votes
    1. [3]
      boxer_dogs_dance
      Link Parent
      The mass layoffs of government staff and canceling huge dollar sums of government contracts is absolutely going to contract the economy and hurt a wide variety of businesses. Turning off research...

      The mass layoffs of government staff and canceling huge dollar sums of government contracts is absolutely going to contract the economy and hurt a wide variety of businesses. Turning off research funding for universities will kill economies in university towns.

      There is a lot more to this picture than tariffs. However, there are ideological justifications for all of it, so maybe you are right that the problem is the true believers. I don't see Musk as an ideologue though. He is definitely looking to profit, and possibly to rule.

      17 votes
      2. TheRtRevKaiser
        Link Parent
        1 in 20 people in my state are employed either directly or indirectly by a single research university. If NIH cuts continue, there's going to be massive job loss here. Plus, the fastest growing...

        1 in 20 people in my state are employed either directly or indirectly by a single research university. If NIH cuts continue, there's going to be massive job loss here. Plus, the fastest growing metro area in the state relies heavily on aerospace grants from the federal government. If both of those dry up, Alabama will be a third world country in a hurry, the tariffs will just be icing on the shit cake.

        3 votes
  2. [2]
    AnthonyB
    Link
    Questioning if the people in charge are puppeteers executing an evil masterplan or incompetent opportunists who capitalize on their mistakes is a "chicken or the egg" debate that has been around...

    "If you think back at the last economic crashes—both in Covid and in the 2008 financial crash—while initially everyone suffered, including the rich, out of both, the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before," she noted.

    "So in 2008, not only did they get their own custom bailout, but they were able to buy housing stock at absurdly low prices," Ball recalled. "The rich got richer than ever, inequality skyrocketed, and the big banks got bigger than ever."

    "Same deal with the Covid-era recession," she continued. "So, while again, everyone suffered initially, there was a huge bailout package which, yes, did benefit ordinary people, but if you look at who came out really on top... you could see people like Elon Musk, people like Jeff Bezos, people like Mark Zuckerberg getting far wealthier. Their net worths, which were already very high, skyrocketed beyond anyone's wildest dreams."

    Indeed, as Common Dreamsreported, 700 billionaires got $1.7 trillion richer during two years of pandemic. Between March 2020 and April 2022, Musk got 10 times richer, while Zuckerberg's net worth more than tripled and Bezos' grew by nearly $80 billion, according to Forbes.

    "Here's the other piece that's worth thinking about as well," Ball added. "Crash and crisis leads to governments and authoritarian leaders claiming more power for themselves. They can use the crisis and the emergency as a justification for taking on extraordinary powers and for taking extraordinary measures... measures that can be custom fit to primarily benefit oligarchs like Elon Musk."

    "So I don't know guys, while we're running around here going... 'can't they understand how this is going to be devastating for the economy,' maybe they do understand," she concluded, "and maybe that's kind of the point."

    Questioning if the people in charge are puppeteers executing an evil masterplan or incompetent opportunists who capitalize on their mistakes is a "chicken or the egg" debate that has been around for as long as I can remember. But does it really matter? I guess it could give us some insight over what their next move might be, but I feel like those cards have been on the table for a while. Does anyone outside of Trump's voter base have any doubt that the ultra-wealthy are going to come out of this term with considerably more wealth and power?

    7 votes
    1. arrza
      Link Parent
      Just a small nitpick in the language used in you quote you shared. Can we stop using "in anyone's wildest dreams" and instead say "in anyone's darkest dystopias"?

      Just a small nitpick in the language used in you quote you shared. Can we stop using "in anyone's wildest dreams" and instead say "in anyone's darkest dystopias"?

      3 votes
  3. elight
    Link
    "Chaos is a ladder."

    "Chaos is a ladder."

    4 votes