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Unknown A
Welcome to the show. Economists are starting to panic about a possible Trump recession if Donald Trump is able to continue his economic agenda. Now, let's not pretend that this wasn't obvious from the start. Let's not pretend that we're surprised. Donald Trump's economic approach of chaotic trade wars and aggressive budget cuts and pandering to right wing populist rhetoric, it's always been a recipe for disaster. But we've been hoping that he simply won't actually do the stuff, either because he'll change his mind or it just won't happen or someone will talk him out of it. But economists are now sounding the alarm about what could be an impending Trump recession if the policies take hold. And just a basic understanding of economics makes it easy to see why. The administration's obsession with slapping tariffs on our closest trading partners and gutting federal agencies is pushing the economy to a tipping point.
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Unknown A
Predictably drastic cuts and reckless policies that play well on right wing media, especially before an election, but fail in the real world. And let's go down the list. If you tariff Canada and Mexico 25% on key imports, you choke the North American auto industry, you disrupt supply chains and so this makes companies pull back on hiring, the job losses stack up and then fewer people have money with which to buy stuff and it's a demand side disaster. You then look at the budget cuts which now they are talking about. The Trump team has gleefully been slashing funding from critical agencies, typically based on ideology, not on actual economic reasoning. They gutted noa, the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's budget, because they published climate data. Businesses don't know if they can rely on how accurate weather forecasts are. How are companies supposed to make informed decisions and that kind of uncertainty?
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Unknown A
And Noah'just one example. The administration's obsession with rooting out, quote, woke agendas has led to mass firings and contractor cutbacks across the federal government that ripples through the private sector. Workers don't know will I have a paycheck tomorrow if I do answer an email from Elon or if I don't, and when they don't know if they're going to have a paycheck tomorrow, they stop spending. When companies don't know if their projects will be funded next quarter, they don't invest. And that's how you set off this contract. A contracting cycle, a cycle of contraction. Trump's tax cuts, the one big beautiful bill that he wants to do, it's not going to bail him out. It's not going to be good for the economy. And meanwhile, cuts to green energy projects have halted billions of dollars in private investment. Projects in battery manufacturing, solar energy, offshore wind, they're just dead.
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Unknown A
The projects are dead, the jobs are lost. The associated economic growth goes away. The opportunities for American workers go away. So what's happening right now? The alarm that's being sounded by economists is completely predictable because they were also sounding the alarm before the election. The Trump administration is doubling down on chaos as a governing strategy and the economy is what is at risk. We've been warning about it. I discussed that. Turning economic policy into a culture war is a spectacle that won't end well. Slashing funds from federal agencies under the guise of fighting woke without really accomplishing anything is not a good idea. Relying on tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations as a cure all is not a good idea. It causes instability. And now we have economist warning of a recession that they tried to downplay and say it'll never happen. Economists are warning if Trump does the stuff he promised to do, if he does the stuff he's trying to do, it's going to become a reality.
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Unknown A
This is not hindsight, this is foresight, because it hasn't happened yet. Ok, we saw it coming. It hasn't yet happened. Although there's concerns that some of the economic indicators in the next month may point that way. We can still stop it. If Mike Pence has the courage now, we can still stop it. But something needs to get in the way of Trump accomplishing his objectives. And we talked about the polling fiasco that Trump is dealing with yesterday. Is it possible someone in Trump's orbit might be able to talk sense into him and say, don't do this stuff, it's a bad idea. I don't know. I don't know. But some MAGA voters are noticing and we should talk about that next. Data brokers are continually collecting extensive details about your online behavior. Address, phone number, email, financial information, even political views. This sensitive information about you can easily be found on public data search sites by anybody.
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Unknown A
Could be an X, could be an employer. And these brokers sell the data to other businesses and even government agencies like the FBI and nsa, who can buy it in bulk to surveil Americans without a search warrant. Scammers and spammers also get your details from these lists. And that's why you get the text messages and the calls and the emails. But you can stop it. Our sponsor, Incogni, will send removal requests to data brokers who are legally obligated to comply. If any of your information remains online, Incogni will follow up and ensure that it's taken down. Incogni keeps you informed every step of the way, and it just saves you countless hours of work that would be nearly impossible to do on your own. I use Incogni, and what they've managed to do is remarkable. Go to incogni.com pacman and use the code PACMAN for 60% off. The link is below.