John Drake

This is just a continuation of the stock market manipulation Trump engaged in during his first term. Remember when he first threatened tariffs against China then? The markets would drop and then there would be an announcement of "progress" and the markets would bounce back and soar. He did this over and over and over and over again, ramping up the stock market over time. BTW, Trump back then kept most of his investments in a "blind trust" which consisted almost entirely of S&P ETFs. So he only had to keep an eye out on one thing: pushing up the S&P. This gauche, narcissistic glutton is only going to take actions that enrich him and his family.

I live in Thailand. The most important factor for me is a strong dollar. And Trump is destroying the US dollar. Biden's policy of a strong dollar made me tangibly wealthier, while Trump is degrading my standard of living.

Island of strangers.

We're going to need it! Need to get a reading on the water level in the dams, too.

He's just a narcissistic agent of chaos who wants two things: 1) to be the center of attention every day and 2) to manipulate the government to increase his own wealth through a variety of shady deals and stock manipulation.

As inept as Thai officials can be, I expect to see Trump's even more incompetent negotiators get rolled by them.

I think we're going to need this topic this year. Maybe they should already be letting dam water out.

It would destroy the lives of thousands if not millions of Thais. Horrible for the country, although I do remember of going to Chaengwattan for my retirement extension and enjoying only having two three people sitting in the waiting area.

So the goal of the tariffs wasn't really about reshoring American jobs and isolating your Chinese enemy or stop paying them to build weapons to use against the US? It was all about stock market manipulation.

Maybe two years ago. I used to stop in and say hello to some old colleagues at MUIC whenever I would go to the Mahidol branch of Bangkok Bank. It was still the closest branch to me. But they closed it, and I haven't gone back to MU.

"Tax credits" seem to work oddly in IRS terminology. The Earned Income Tax Credit, for example, is not a credit against taxes you pay but actually a cash amount the government flat out gives you. Maybe that is the way they will do it, here. File return, claim US citizen remittance tax credit, and have the IRS issue it to your bank account.

When these sort of holidays come around, it has had an effect on my SSA payment to my Thai bank account. At first, I would get payments on the same day that SSA paid out my check. Then, for quite some time, I was put at the back of the line. And, as with the instance described, I would receive my check the next day or, in case of holidays, some time four days after the SSA payout. Right now, I'm back to getting same day checks. Received mine in my Bangkok Bank account this month on 2 May in the morning.

Do you count the Iranian terrorists from about 10 or 12 years ago? I think Thailand eventually let them go free back to Iran.

Just in time for the Isaan Rocket Festival.

He's signaling his stock market pump again.

Interesting to see the vast number of UK MIAs versus the extremely low number of US MIAs. Asked Grok about it and Grok said the US had a better centralized system of record keeping and many of the UK MIAs were later found to be POWs. Other factors too, but the UK MIAs almost equal the KIAs.

I could accept that, except there are already so many of his toddler toys thrown out of the crib and cluttering the floor. He's grunting about Canada and Greenland again. Putting tariffs on movies. At one moment saying Iran's nuclear program is okay, the next saying there is no change. Then vague comments about whether or not he'll uphold the Constitution. How can an 80 year old man behave with such a lack of dignity and disdain for the contempt future generations will hold for him?

Other Trump memes also exist, such as one with him shaking hands with Hitler or dressed like Stalin. Why doesn't he just forward some of them as well, as it's all a joke? He doesn't do so, of course, because, rightly, they're offensive and he doesn't want to be seen as endorsing their message, which is what a White House forwarding does. And, again, all that is aside, as amplifying this meme only has a downside. No upside. He gains nothing from it. Instead, he alienates yet more people who probably voted or back him. It was an act of political stupidity.

Just two questions to be asked: 1) What was the upside of this joke? 2) What was the downside?

Trump sounding more like Kim Dotcom every day.

I hate him. Prayuth was better.

He is intentionally destroying the value of the dollar, which effects my life directly. I don't know yet if his "reforms" will mean I need to go to Manila in person for any SSA problems, the Form 7162 this year will be sabotaged, it will soon take months to get a new passport, or he will jiggle with the SSA Cola to cheat me out of more money. But, yea, I hate his fast food stuffing guts.

Very soon, even the Republicans in Congress are going to realize they need to pass legislation to restore their own power over tariffs and spending. If they don't stop this, they're going to be vaporized in the midterms.

Not all of America. Plenty of places have much cheaper production facilites. It's Hollywood production that is dying. That said, one of the things that made Hollywood films (and even TV with series such as Foreign Intrigue, Hong Kong, and Adventures in Paradise) generate even more appeal after World War II was the movement to location shooting. The adventure genre really took off in the late 40s and on throughout the 50s and 60s, all because of location shooting. It provided authenticity. This stupid move by Trump will just limit storylines and generate even more insular filmmaking.

Trump is a slug. But even for a slug this is tin eared. Weren't there at least nine or ten people around him who had the brains to warn him off against this sort of stupidity?