RSD1

I can even envision situations where someone gets caught without having their medical certificate on them. In that case, there would likely be a grace period during which they could present a valid certificate to avoid any penalties. So if someone is caught using cannabis without documentation, they could simply visit a clinic, get the certificate retroactively, present it to the authorities, and have the penalty dismissed.

The only 2 salient points: 1 - Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s administration is proposing licensing mandates, though stopping short of an outright ban on recreational use, likely due to political pressure from Bhumjaithai. So the likelihood of any strict ban or penalties for recreational use still seems very low. 2 - Cannabis users or buyers must present medical certificates and prescriptions issued by certified medical professionals, including both traditional and general practitioners. Usage will be limited to specific medical conditions like epilepsy, insomnia, and chronic headaches. So under the new framework, getting a valid medical certificate to continue using cannabis legally would just mean visiting any neighborhood clinic and paying (presumably no more than ฿500) for a medical certificate stating you suffer from chronic insomnia and headaches and require daily cannabis use. Done. Palava over. To me, it sounds like another nothingburger. Just optics. The government wants to appear proactive against recreational use, but in practice, nothing really changes. Just a minor nuisance to get a one-time medical certificate, then back to business as usual.

Understood. I use regular flower to make my own oil, and it’s really strong, it can get you extremely high. But the difference of just a few drops can have a major impact. Sometimes I want to get high, and sometimes I don’t, so precise dosing matters. I’ve been using the same batch for about a year now and have gotten to know its potency quite well. Here’s how I typically use it: 4–5 drops: Great for sleep, pain relief, anxiety reduction, and muscle spasms. Almost no noticeable psychoactive effect. 10 drops: A decent high with strong relaxation, plus all the above benefits. 15 drops: A very strong high. You still get some of the other benefits, but it’s not ideal for sleep because the psychoactive effects are quite intense. I’ve never gone beyond 15 drops, I don’t think I could handle more than that. I also have another batch made with weaker flower. Once, I took 30 drops of that, thinking it would be much less powerful, and it was still way too much, even though it was a milder brew. The high was too intense. Couldn't really handle it. So one needs to be careful. And 30 drops was still only 3/4 of 1ML. So small amounts is usually what's best. The number of drops I use really depends on the oil’s potency, which comes down to the THC content. So your experience might be different if you make your own oil, even with the same number of drops. Yours could come out what a different level of potency. And your tolerance might be higher or lower than mine, everyone’s different in that respect. The key is to make your own oil using regular flower, then start experimenting with very low doses. Start with three drops. Then try five. Gradually increase until you find the right amount for your needs, whether it’s just for relaxation with minimal psycho activity, or for a stronger high. Once you’ve dialed it in, your dosing will be consistent every time, as long as you’re using the same batch. I pretty much use 4-5 drops every night, whether I want to get high or not. It's just nice and relaxing.

I don't think you will find that very easily, as you probably shrewdly know. Most of the CBD oil being sold in Thailand, assuming it is even legit, is sourcing it as a chemical extract and then making the oil using that. But is there a reason you only want CBD and no THC? And what is your main purpose when using it? Sleep? Pain? I have some ideas on how you can use regular full spectrum flower to make your own oil, but let me know first what is your main objective with it.

And I’m Santa Claus. You’ve made all these so-called scientific claims about the quality (or lack there of) of the weed, yet you’ve provided absolutely no actual evidence to back any of it up. Just your "expert opinion". What really amazes me is how someone can even post multiple times moaning about the taste, the smell, or the so called quality of the high, while paying around $13 an ounce. Seriously?

Hyperbole much? Of course it’s real bud. I’ve bought all kinds of weed in Thailand over the years and seen it all. I remember when the only option was that dreaded brick weed, so things have come a long way since then. And honestly, the quality of the cheaper stuff from LINE vendors has only gotten better over the last 6-8 months, not worse. But you seem determined to paint everything negative for no good reason. Not sure what’s driving all this overblown doom and gloom, but people shouldn’t be misled by your complaints.

Sure, it’s not a huge amount, but you were the one complaining about buying 100 g and not being happy with the quality. I was just suggesting a way to avoid that, by not ordering so much at once before you’ve tried it. If you prefer to buy 100 g sight unseen, that’s up to you. Just don’t complain about it afterward. Not in my experience. The type of high you get is directly tied to how much THC you take in. It’s either strong or it’s not, you’ve either had enough or you haven’t. I’ve never had a “crappy” high or one that didn’t last, as long as the THC content was there.

I got some new stuff from Fis Hight 420 about a week ago, a few different strains. One was priced at 10 Baht and the others a bit higher, around 13 and 15 Baht per gram if I remember right. I’ve never found any this low end stuff from these various LINE sellers particularly strong, but it usually does the job. I’ll normally go for the highest priced bud they offer though, assuming it will be more potent. That used to be around 30 Baht the last time I ordered, which was a few months ago. Now it’s all even cheaper. I think the most expensive one they have now is 15 Baht. Anyway, the 10 Baht stuff looked really good, big, colorful, sticky, dense buds. The taste seemed a bit too fruity to be natural though. And it didn’t really get me high, so I gave up on it. Then I moved on to the higher priced stuff. The buds were a bit looser, drier, and had some black coloring around the edges, but surprisingly potent. Can’t remember the last time I got that high from low cost weed. Taste was fine. I was really pleased. The third strain I got from them was good too, much greener, smaller, and tighter buds, but also high potency. For 13 or 15 Baht a gram, I really can’t complain. Eighteen months ago, I would have paid ten times that price, for the same strength and would have had to drive to a supplier outside the city and buy larger quantities to get decent prices. Now I just send a text and the stuff shows up the next day. A lot lower cost, high potency, and no running around. But I’ll never order 100 grams at a time without trying it first. It’s not because of cost, but for the reasons you mentioned. Better to start with a small quantity when buying sight unseen. I normally order 10 or 20 grams of a few of their different strains to start, and then if it’s good, I’ll order more the next day of the one I like best, if they still have stock. Otherwise, if already sold out, I’ll order something else in low quantities again until I test the quality.

Trade deals done: 0 Wars ended: 0 Major infrastructure bills passed: 0 New tax law enacted: 0 Border wall built: 0 miles Obamacare repealed: 0 times

Bloomberg Evening Briefing - 30/July/2025 The US famously bounced back from a pandemic recession that struck like a hammer blow in 2020. Fueled by a massive government rescue effort that pumped tremendous amounts of money into the economy, the nation was soon outpacing rivals in a return to growth. The country that saw more than a million people killed by Covid-19 not only avoided a depression, but eventually reached a level of employment so high it matched a half century-old record from when Richard Nixon was president. But that was then. For Donald Trump, it’s not Nixon but Gerald Ford that comes to mind this week. The president closes out his first 100 days in office able to claim almost-singlehanded responsibility for sending the S&P 500 Index down about 8%. It’s the worst first 100 days for markets since 1974, when Ford took over for his disgraced predecessor. And it gets worse. Unlike the churning US economy of the last half of the Biden administration, Trump now presides over the first US economic contraction since 2022. Inflation-adjusted gross domestic product decreased an annualized 0.3% in the first quarter, well below average growth of about 3% in the prior two years. The uncertainty over Trump’s chaotic tariff strategy, his radical push to deport undocumented workers, legal immigrants and foreign students, his mass firings of federal employees and a sometimes overt disdain for the US Constitution have all unnerved investors who a few short months ago were singing his praises. It’s all combined to send the S&P 500 diving into its seventh-fastest correction since 1929. There was however some good news for Trump in today’s hard data, with consumer spending advancing more than economists had predicted. But that comes amid a parade of consumer sentiment surveys—including one yesterday—showing optimism nowhere to be found. Low-income Americans are already facing the hardship of high prices while wealthier individuals have been set back by this year’s drop in stock prices. And a closely watched measure of underlying inflation accelerated to a 3.5% pace in the first quarter—the most in a year. —David E. Rovella - Bloomberg News

I've been using Trump's right hand with used toilet paper for years already. Works almost as good at removing dingle berries as one of Trump's bibles made in China. Try it and you can thank me later.

Trump's recession will be officially announced on July 31. More winning than ever before!

Gotta give Musk credit for his tenacity. Still trying to polish a turd. Too much winning. More winning than anyone knows what to do with! Source: https://www.economist.com/business/2025/04/23/even-republicans-are-falling-out-of-love-with-tesla Apr 23rd 2025 Elon Musk is right to shift his focus back to carmaking “The future of Tesla is brighter than ever.” So declared Elon Musk during an earnings call on April 22nd. According to the carmaker’s boss, Tesla remains on course to become the world’s most valuable firm, worth as much as the next five companies combined, as it churns out fleets of autonomous taxis and armies of humanoid robots. As Mr Musk gazes into the future, however, investors remain transfixed by the car crash that is currently occurring at Tesla. Revenue from car sales in the first quarter was down by a fifth, year on year. Operating profit plummeted by two-thirds. Far from racing ahead, Tesla’s market value has fallen by roughly half since its peak of roughly $1.5trn in December. Earlier this month the company reported that it delivered just 337,000 vehicles in the quarter, 13% fewer than a year before and well below analysts’ expectations (see chart 1). In Europe, which accounts for around a fifth of sales, registrations of new Teslas slid by 40%. In America, the carmaker’s biggest market, sales fell by almost 9%, even as those of all electric vehicles rose by 11%. Can Tesla recover? Slumping sales partly reflect a backlash against the politics of Mr Musk, who has lately refashioned himself into a right-wing activist and nemesis of America’s “deep state”. Tesla’s showrooms have faced protests and arson attacks since Mr Musk took his chainsaw to the federal government as head of Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. Some analysts had hoped that, at least in America, a boom in Tesla sales to right-wing consumers would balance out declining sales to left-wing ones. TD Cowen, an investment bank, recently estimated that although Mr Musk’s political activities could cut sales by more than 100,000 vehicles a year in America’s Democrat-leaning counties, they could boost them by twice that in Republican-leaning ones. That type of partisan rebalancing was on display last year as Mr Musk completed his maga conversion. Our analysis, drawing on figures from S&P Global, a data provider, suggests that Tesla’s sales shrank in left-leaning cities in 2024 while growing in right-leaning ones. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area, which favoured Kamala Harris in the presidential election by nearly three-to-one, sales fell by more than 16% last year; in Tampa, which favoured Mr Trump by a wide margin, they rose by around 18%. Unfortunately for Mr Musk, even Republicans now appear to be spurning his evs. Trends in the used-car market suggest that a growing number of Tesla drivers in both blue and red states are putting their cars up for sale. Figures from MarketCheck, which tracks the inventories of more than 75,000 dealerships across America, show that listings of used Teslas have risen by two-thirds since the start of the year, twice as much as for other evs. Listings for the Model 3 have increased by 63%; those for the Model Y have rocketed by 80%. The pattern can be seen in both left-leaning states, such as Massachusetts and New York, and right-leaning ones, such as Indiana and South Carolina. That hints at a deeper problem for Tesla: stiffening competition. By contrast with its early years, when it was essentially unchallenged, the carmaker now faces serious threats from rivals such as General Motors (in America) and BYD (in China and elsewhere). It cannot afford a distracted boss. To investors’ relief, Mr Musk announced during the earnings call that he would now be spending “far more” of his time away from Washington and at the company. They will be hoping he can speedily reverse Tesla out of its mess.

From the Bloomberg Markets Daily email newsletter I received this morning: 100 days of whiplash Donald Trump promised Americans a “boom like no other” if they elected him president. But based on the stock market’s performance during his first 100 days in office, it depends on what you mean by “boom.” The action certainly has been explosive — just not in the way investors were hoping. By April 30, Trump will have closed out his first 100 days in office. Despite last week’s rally, the S&P 500 Index is down about 8% since his inauguration and on track for its worst run during a president’s first 100 days since Gerald Ford in 1974, following Richard Nixon’s resignation. “It was whiplash after whiplash after whiplash,” said Dave Lutz, macro strategist at JonesTrading and a 30-year Wall Street veteran. Few on Wall Street saw the U-turn coming after two straight years of over 20% gains and what was expected to be a pro-growth agenda. The uncertainty over tariffs, combined with the administration’s aggressive push to deport undocumented workers and its mass firings of federal employees, unnerved investors and sent the S&P 500 spinning into its seventh-fastest correction since 1929. “It was an extreme, for-the-textbooks, systematic risk in its purest form,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert. “The volatility has been wholly different from anything we have experienced in the past, and it indiscriminately spread through all sectors and asset classes like a wildfire, constantly being fueled by random sound bites and shifting policy moves.” Traders went all in on the America First bet immediately after Trump’s election victory, sending the S&P 500 to its best post-election gain ever. The thinking was the administration would loosen regulations and lower taxes, which would boost growth. But the president has instead focused on his tariff fight, sending markets spinning with each new announcement of levies on trade partners. The S&P 500 lost more than 10% in two sessions earlier this month after Trump imposed the steepest US tariffs in a century on April 2. It then soared a week later when the administration reversed direction and delayed most of the duties for 90 days. Stocks have bounced around since then, but traders have struggled to find a direction. “What he was elected for was ‘Make America Great Again,’ the ‘economy will be booming,’” said Eric Diton, president and managing director at Wealth Alliance. “But all the trade uncertainty has actually detracted from economic growth.” —Esha Dey

Worst April since The Great Depression. Winning, the likes of which the world has never seen before! --- Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal Few think administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain By Hannah Erin Lang - WSJ April 21, 2025 9:00 pm ET The Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed almost 1,000 points on Monday and is headed for its worst April performance since 1932, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500’s performance since Inauguration Day is now the worst for any president up to this point in data going back to 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group. Worries about trade restrictions and the prospect of President Trump firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell have investors bracing for greater losses ahead. Corporate earnings reports are rolling in, along with executives’ tariff-dented outlooks for the months ahead. Few think the administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain. Meanwhile, counterweights that usually strengthen when stocks fall—such as government bonds and the U.S. dollar—are also under pressure, leaving investors with few havens to wait out the storm. “It’s the hallmark of the ‘no confidence’ trade,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments. The Charlotte-based firm trimmed its U.S. equity position several weeks ago to favor more international stocks. “It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure.” Here’s how markets have reacted as threats have multiplied: STOCKS In the weeks after Donald Trump’s presidential victory, major U.S. stock indexes soared, lifted by investors’ hopes for tax cuts and a deregulatory push that could boost corporate earnings. But the administration instead pressed ahead with aggressive tariffs that threaten to raise prices and slow economic growth. Many investors still wrote off the president’s threats as mere bluster, a negotiating tactic meant to spur concessions from other countries. That changed on April 2, when Trump revealed steep tariffs that sent markets into a tailspin. TREASURYS Markets still haven’t recovered—even after the president rolled back and delayed many of his tariff plans. Typically, bond prices rise when stocks fall, offering a hedge for investors during stock market turmoil. But that hasn’t been the case in recent weeks. Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasurys, a key benchmark for borrowing costs, have increased 0.16 percentage points in April. Bond yields rise as prices fall, meaning investors are selling U.S. government bonds—widely considered one of the safest and most dependable assets—even when stocks are falling. THE DOLLAR Concerns about the economy, along with fears about Trump’s growing feud with the Fed, are weighing on the U.S. dollar. The ICE U.S. dollar index, a measure of the dollar against a basket of major currencies, slipped more than 1% on Monday to its lowest level in three years. GOLD With other defensive plays falling short, investors have piled into one of oldest hedges there is: gold. Future prices for the precious metal reached another all-time high on Monday. VIX The markets’ “fear gauge” remains elevated, with worries about the trade war and the broader economy adding up to expectations for more volatility ahead. SENTIMENT The mood on Wall Street is darkening as a result. Bearishness levels—or expectations that stock prices will fall—among ordinary investors have hovered above 50% for eight consecutive weeks, according to a weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors. That is the longest-lasting bear majority on record, the investor group said, based on data going back to 1987. Source: https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/dow-jones-stocks-worst-april-1932-74fe82ac

Most shops are located in high-rent areas and also have running costs like staff, electricity, and so on, so they have no choice but to charge much higher prices per gram. Those prices are fine for tourists who are buying a gram or two and just want a convenient place to buy and smoke, but nearly all expats, as many have pointed out, buy online for about 5 percent of what the shops charge. Presumably, many of these shops are operating at a loss, but there’s long been speculation that some are intentionally doing so because they’re being used as money laundering fronts for other gray market business. Nobody knows for sure, but that’s always been the talk, mainly because it’s hard to understand how they survive while charging more per gram than even a dispensary in Amsterdam or New York.

LINE ID: @fh420

The quoted text below is from the article linked below, quoting an opinion about what might happen to the value of the dollar, equities, treasuries, and pretty much every other US asset in the financial markets if Trump fired Powell. It sounds like a pretty ominous prediction, but I’m wondering how realistic it actually is. Do the markets really care that much about Jerome Powell and his job, or whether the Fed has independence? I’m not sure what to think of the prediction. In my opinion, I don’t think investors are that concerned about the Fed having independence. In fact, a lot of investors don’t really like what the Fed does anyway, so perhaps the market would actually cheer it if Trump fires Powell and cuts interest rates by 200 basis points overnight. I realize there’s a lot of volatility in the market right now, which might suggest that the market is fearful of Powell being fired. That would indicate a possible negative response to his actual firing, but maybe the volatility is just due to the uncertainty. After Powell was fired, maybe the markets would stabilize and find a bottom following an initial sell-off. I don’t really know, and I’m not claiming to know, but I’d be interested to hear some other opinions, especially if anyone has any real understanding of the market dynamics of it beyond armchair speculation. --- Quoting the article: “Were Powell to be fired, the initial reaction would be a huge injection of volatility into financial markets, and the most dramatic rush to the exit from U.S. assets that it is possible to imagine,” said Michael Brown, a senior research strategist at Pepperstone, an Australian-based provider of trading services. “Lower, much lower, equities; Treasuries sold across the board; and, the dollar falling off a cliff,” Brown wrote in a note on Monday. Any sign of the longstanding, independent nature of the Fed coming under threat “would see investors across the globe selling every single U.S.-based asset that they have, and also poses the genuinely scary prospect of upending the entire way in which the global financial system operates. If this were to happen, then the reserve status of the dollar, and haven value of Treasuries, would be wiped out, probably forever in both cases.” --- Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-fire-powell-trade-could-look-like-as-trump-attacks-fed-chair-again-53511c3b

Of course, Trump wasn't screwing China when he just whacked them with 154% tariffs? Kettle black innit.

That’s all good, but it still comes across as Google Scholar and YouTube PhD info. I’m not saying any of your points are wrong, but it’s hard to take third-hand information too seriously. Even second-hand insights are often unreliable because they’re based on someone’s personal interpretation. You seem pretty keen on Colombia, and that’s fine, I’m just not. Sure, it has a few upsides, but there are too many downsides for me. It just feels far less balanced than a place like Thailand when you weigh the pros and cons. Like I said before, even a place like Spain would make more sense. Or spending part of the year in some of the more developed countries in Asia. For me, the ideal setup is to base yourself in a country that checks the most boxes, knowing no place is perfect, and then travel a few times a year to change the wallpaper. There’s no perfect country, and even if one came close, its climate wouldn’t be ideal year-round. That’s one of the main reasons I travel to escape the worst weather in the country I’m based in. Take Thailand for example: April and May are brutal in terms of heat, at least in my opinion. The rest of the year is mostly fine, apart from periods of extreme rain or awful air pollution. Anyway, to sum it up, anyone seriously considering Colombia really just needs to go and see it for themselves. No amount of research or advice can prepare someone for how they’ll actually feel in a place once they’re there. I’ve been to places people hated and I really liked, and the opposite has happened too. Personal preference plays a huge role in all of this. There are people who visit Thailand or Bangkok and can’t imagine living there, and yet for others, they’d rather live nowhere else.

Driving in Thailand is stressful. Would never do it for more than a day.

I’ve read your posts about Colombia and watched the video you shared about that apartment complex in the city you’re recommending. But I’m curious, have you actually been to Colombia or spent any amount of time there, or is this just anecdotal information you’ve picked up and are passing along? I don’t mean to sound judgmental, and I admit I haven’t been there myself, but my understanding is that it’s still a pretty dangerous country in many ways. Robberies seem to be common, and the crime can be physically violent, especially when someone wants something from you. That said, I’ve been curious about Colombia myself. I’ve heard good things about the people, the food, climate, and I’ve met some really nice Colombians. But I think there are still a lot of downsides to living there, and it’s not as straightforward as just low cost-of-living. Sure, it’s affordable, but so are other places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Ecuador, Mexico, etc, but I wouldn’t want to live in any of those places either. Unless you’re in one of the major cities in Colombia, you’re probably quite limited in terms of shopping and food choices, availability of imported goods, general lifestyle options, reliability of services, internet, and so on. And while the big cities do offer more variety, they’re also where the risks can be highest in terms of crime. On the other hand, the more remote areas might be safer, but they also risk being boring or too limited, even if they’re cheap and have a decent climate. And realistically, if you want to come and go from the country, you still have to go through those big, dangerous cities anyway. If you’re seriously suggesting Colombia as a place to live, I’d recommend digging a little deeper into the realities on the ground. There’s a guy on YouTube with a channel called "Life with David", an American with Latino roots who moved to Colombia and has been living there for a while. He’s posted a lot of very straight-up videos about life there, and he doesn’t shy away from talking about the dangers. After watching a few of his videos, I came away feeling like it’s a very edgy place to live, which kind of cooled my interest. You could probably find a similar quality of life in Spain, for example, but without all the risk. You’d be in Europe, with better infrastructure, reliable healthcare, solid services, and a more stable environment overall. Probably a better long-term option than Colombia.

DOGE Is Far Short of Its Goal, and Still Overstating Its Progress Elon Musk now says his group will produce only 15 percent of the savings it promised. But even that estimate is inflated with errors and guesswork. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has produced an accounting of impressive-sounding budget cuts using inflated and speculative figures, even claiming credit for canceling a contract that did not exist. By David A. Fahrenthold and Jeremy Singer-Vine - The reporters have been examining the details of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and its online ledger of purported savings. April 13, 2025 Last week, Elon Musk indicated for the first time that his Department of Government Efficiency was falling short of its goal. He previously said his powerful budget-cutting team could reduce the next fiscal year’s federal budget by $1 trillion, and do it by Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Instead, in a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Musk said that he anticipated the group would save about $150 billion, 85 percent less than its objective. Even that figure may be too high, according to a New York Times analysis of DOGE’s claims. That’s because, when Mr. Musk’s group tallies up its savings so far, it inflates its progress by including billion-dollar errors, by counting spending that will not happen in the next fiscal year — and by making guesses about spending that might not happen at all. One of the group’s largest claims, in fact, involves canceling a contract that did not exist. Although the government says it had merely asked for proposals in that case, and had not settled on a vendor or a price, Mr. Musk’s group ignored that uncertainty and assigned itself a large and very specific amount of credit for canceling it. It said it had saved exactly $318,310,328.30. Mr. Musk’s group has now triggered mass firings across the government, and sharp cutbacks in humanitarian aid around the world. Mr. Musk has justified those disruptions with two promises: that the group would be transparent, and that it would achieve budget cuts that others called impossible. Now, watching the group pare back its aims and puff up its progress, some of its allies have grown doubtful about both. “They’re just spinning their wheels, citing in many cases overstated or fake savings,” said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “What’s most frustrating is that we agree with their goals. But we’re watching them flail at achieving them.” Mr. Musk’s group did not respond to questions about its claims sent via X, his social-media platform. Mr. Musk previously acknowledged the group might make errors but said they would be corrected. The White House press office defended the team, saying it had compiled “massive accomplishments,” but declined to address specific instances where the group seemed to have inflated its progress. Mr. Musk actually promised an even larger reduction last year. When he was Mr. Trump’s most prominent supporter on the campaign trail, he said he could cut $2 trillion from a federal budget of about $7 trillion. After Mr. Trump was elected and Mr. Musk’s group began its work, Mr. Musk lowered that goal to $1 trillion. Even after Mr. Musk’s comments in Thursday’s cabinet meeting, a White House official indicated that this target had not changed. Budget analysts had been deeply skeptical of these claims, saying it would be difficult to cut that much without disrupting government services even further, or drastically altering popular benefit programs like Medicare and Social Security. Mr. Musk’s group has provided an online ledger of its budget cuts, which it calls the “Wall of Receipts.” The site was last updated on Tuesday, to show an “estimated savings” of $150 billion. The ledger is riddled with omissions and flaws. While Mr. Musk said on Thursday that his group would save $150 billion in fiscal 2026 alone, the website does not say explicitly when its savings would be realized. The site also gives no identifying details about $92 billion of its claimed savings, which is more than 60 percent of the total. The rest of the savings are itemized, attributed to cancellations of specific federal grants, contracts or office leases. But these detailed listings have been plagued with data errors, which have inflated the group’s savings by billions. DOGE’s $150 Billion in Claimed Savings Is Short on Detail On its website, the Department of Government Efficiency claims to have saved $150 billion in federal spending. As of early April, however, it has provided receipt-level breakdowns for less than 40 percent of that amount. Mr. Musk’s group has deleted some of its original errors, like entries that triple-counted the same savings, a claim that confused “billion” with “million,” and items that claimed credit for canceling contracts that ended when George W. Bush was president. Still, some expensive mistakes remain. The second-largest savings that the group lists on its site comes from a canceled I.R.S. contract that DOGE says saved $1.9 billion. But the contract it cites was actually canceled when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was president. The third-largest savings that the group claims comes from a canceled grant to a vaccine nonprofit. Mr. Musk’s group says that saved $1.75 billion. But the nonprofit said it had actually been paid in full, so the savings was $0. In other cases, the itemized claims include “savings” that would not happen in fiscal 2026 — or might not happen at all. They start with the largest single savings on the group’s website. Mr. Musk’s team says it saved $2.9 billion by canceling a contract for a huge shelter in West Texas to house migrant children who crossed the border alone. That figure is pumped up by assuming things that might never happen, according to a New York Times analysis of federal contracting data and interviews with people familiar with that contract who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss it with members of the media. One assumption was that the government was going to renew the contract every year for three more years. Another was that the shelter was going to hold hundreds of children every day from 2023 to 2028, triggering a higher payment rate. Both of those assumptions seem less than guaranteed, given that the number of unaccompanied child migrants began falling last year. Around the country, shelters like this had emptied out even before Mr. Trump took office. The Texas shelter had been empty since March 2024. The government paid a lower rate of $18 million per month to keep it on standby, compared to $55 million per month if the facility had been full, people familiar with the contract said. By canceling the contract, the government did save the cost of keeping the facility ready until it expired later this year. But only a fraction of that money — about $27 million — would count as savings in fiscal 2026. That was about 1 percent of the savings that Mr. Musk’s group had claimed. Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said this approach — casting uncertain events as certain — was common in the data published by Mr. Musk’s group. “It’s like if your kid drops out of college, and you tell your wife, ‘Whoa, we saved money on medical school!’ Well, that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the same idea,” Mr. Malkus said. “How do you call it savings?” In another example, Mr. Musk’s group said it had saved $285 million by canceling a contract with a South Dakota company, Project Solutions Inc., to perform safety inspections in federally subsidized apartment buildings. But that presumed the government would spend money it had not promised to spend. Robin Miller, a Project Solutions manager, said that the higher figure was calculated using a “ceiling value” — the maximum amount that the government could pay. In reality, she said, the government had agreed to pay only $29 million, of which $1.8 million had been disbursed, and another $3 million was owed for completed work. Ms. Miller said her company supported Mr. Musk’s mission, but his group had its facts wrong in this case. “If it’s not going to be used, it wasn’t truly money saved,” she said. In any event, she said, there would not have been much savings in the period Mr. Musk was focused on: The contract would end on Oct. 3, 2025, just three days into the next fiscal year. Mr. Musk’s group also claimed credit for canceling a contract that was not a contract at all. It involved a request for proposal that the Office of Personnel Management had published, seeking bids for help with human-resources work. When announcing these requests, government agencies describe the work they want done. Contractors submit proposals, with both a plan and a price. The government can choose one vendor, or several. Even after that, it often negotiates with them to push the price below their original bids. Details about this particular request were scarce: Mr. Musk’s group provided a tracking number for the request, 47QFEA24K0008. But The New York Times was not able to find that number in databases of previous government solicitations. The Office of Personnel Management declined to release the request, or say what it had planned to spend on the contract, nor would the office say when it planned to choose a contractor. Despite that uncertainty, Mr. Musk’s calculated the savings involved in that cancellation down to the cent. (It later rounded the claim to an even dollar: $318,310,328.) “Garbage,” said Steven L. Schooner, a professor who studies federal contracting at George Washington University. He said it was far too early to know for sure what the government was going to spend — especially in the year that Mr. Musk had targeted. What if the bidders competed to drive the price lower? What if a losing bidder protested, and then the whole thing got canceled? “You don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Schooner said. “It’s silly.” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/politics/doge-contracts-savings.html

Trump’s sweeping tariffs, now standing at 20% on most imports and up to 145% on Chinese goods, are meant to revive American manufacturing by making foreign products costlier and enticing firms to build factories in the US. But this plan is flawed and already buckling under economic pressure, cultural shifts, and Trump’s unpredictable leadership. Instead of bringing jobs and growth, it looks set to punish consumers and drive away investment. Prices are rising for basics like coffee, clothing, and many electronics, adding anywhere from $1,300 to $3,800 average a year to household budgets. By 2026, inflation could jump up another 1.5% from these tariffs, while tariff retaliation from China and Canada threatens 740,000 US jobs and could shave 1.3% off American GDP. Farmers are already taking a hit, too. China’s 125% tariffs on US soybean and pork exports to China are crushing rural exporters and pushing grocery prices even higher. Yet Trump still banks on a fantasy that Americans will return to factory floors and companies will risk investing billions on building plants in the US. But the economy has moved on. Services now make up 80% of American GDP, and manufacturing jobs, once 30% of employment in 1970, are down to just 8%. These jobs offer low wages, tough conditions, and little growth potential. Most workers who would be filling those types of jobs now lean toward tech, retail, or gig jobs. Automation cuts factory worker roles even further, weakening Trump’s nostalgic vision. And a new factory can cost up to $10 billion to build, a bet most CEOs will not take lightly. His constant policy reversals only add to the confusion. In 2018, tariff uncertainty froze $40 billion in new project investments. Now, US investment could drop another 15%-20%, with companies eyeing more stable countries like Singapore or Mexico. Corruption rumors make it worse. Exemptions may favor Trump donors or his international real estate partners, tilting the market. Small importers get crushed. Big firms may shift billions to fairer systems in the EU or India. Voters expected jobs and cheaper goods, but rising prices and favoritism have left many already feeling burned. So what happens if Trump's dream of American manufacturing glory just no longer fits the reality of a modern economy?