It’s bad out there: European and Asian markets saw sharp declines Monday morning in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs and the fear of the global economic slowdown they could inspire. Wall Street kept slumping as well. The Dow Jones dropped 1,200 points. The S&P 500 is in bear market territory. Goldman Sachs increased the probability of a US recession to 45% this year. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon penned his annual letter to shareholders and said the tariffs will hurt growth and drive up prices for consumers. Oil is down. Bitcoin is down. It’s bad, bad, bad.
Good news. The American empire is falling. Bad news. I’m an American
— Ahhhhh (@nerdjpg.com) April 7, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Trump isn’t budging: Despite everyone with a brain saying how bad these tariffs are for the US and the global economy, Trump isn’t changing his mind yet. He equivocated the economic tailspin to the “medicine” we have to take to “fix” things. In a Monday Truth Social post, Trump wrote that other countries had been “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA” on international trade and that “our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country.”
Quiet Quake in King County Mountains: On Sunday morning, a 3.7-magnitude earthquake shook the mountains northeast of Greenwater in King County. About 290 people felt the quake. No injuries. No damage. Just a reminder that the earth is moving and one day it could kill us all.
The Weather: Open your window. I don’t think you need me to tell you it is rainy and wet.
Don’t Worry: You can talk openly about the White Lotus finale. I watched it last night. Pretty disappointing, in my opinion. And in others’ opinions.
New Frontier for Rocket Taco: In hyperlocal neighborhood news maybe only I care about, Rocket Taco on 19th Avenue E jumped ship from its old location and moved… across the street. Rocket Taco swiftly swept into the restaurant space that’s seen turnover ever since Linda Derschang’s venture Tallulah closed in 2019.
Did you say “Hands Off!” this weekend? Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Washington state on Saturday in demonstrations calling for President Donald Trump and his creep-in-chief Elon Musk to fuck off. Across all 50 states, an estimated 1,200 rallies took place. Millions of people turned out. All we have is our voices and our votes. Let’s keep it up.
Scenes from today’s Hands Off rally at the Seattle Center.
📷 @meganseling.bsky.social
— The Stranger (@thestranger.com) April 5, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Sue Bird selected for Basketball Hall of Fame: Seattle Storm legend Sue Bird will have her name enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame this year alongside the likes of NBA alums Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard and current NBA phenoms LeBron James and Chris Paul. WNBA stars Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles made the cut, too.
Doug the Diva: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is kind of high maintenance. He’s making the political appointees in his office bake him chocolate-chip cookies regularly, ready fresh and warm on demand. They’re the store-bought kind and must be “served to guests and staff in a basket.” Other complaints allege Burgum made political appointees—the people meant to run the department—serve a multi-course meal and do the dishes afterward. They also, upon request, dispatched a US Park Police helicopter for Burgum’s personal transportation. The White House maintains that Burgum is not a diva and is doing a stellar job.
Bruce Harrell Loves a Homeless Sweep: According to data compiled by Seattle reporter Guy Oron, Seattle conducted more than 2,000 homeless sweeps in 2024. The Unified Care Team which conducts the encampment removals was responsible for an average of 6.8 removals a day, Oron reports. Of these sweeps, over 84 percent were done with little or no warning. Sweeping homeless encampments is like Mayor Bruce Harrell’s whole thing. He’s the king of sweeps. In his three years in office, Harrell directed 5,633 sweeps, a number that dwarfs the sweeps conducted by Seattle mayors of the past. Jenny Durkan, for instance, swept 1,781 encampments. At that time that felt like a lot! People were protesting her regularly. Where is the outrage for Bruce the Sweep Freak?
The data reflects the priorities of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell over his first three years in office. In 2023 and 2024, the city spent a combined total of $52.5 million on the Unified Care Team, the interdepartmental agency that carries out Seattle’s encampment, tent and vehicle removals.
— Guy Oron (@guyoron.net) April 5, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Israel’s Gaza “kill zone:”Accounts from Israeli soldiers tell of a strategy to destroy all homes, factories, and farmland within 0.6 miles inside the perimeter of Gaza and turn the area into a “kill zone.” Anyone who entered was killed. The purpose of “The Perimeter” plan was to create an environment where it was easy to identify and kill “militants.” The zone encompasses Gaza’s border with Israel “from the Mediterranean coast in the north to the strip’s south-east corner next to Egypt.”
Speaking of Killing with Abandon: The 15 rescuers, aid workers, and paramedics killed by Israeli forces in Rafah last month were shot in the upper body with “the intent to kill,” according to The Palestine Red Crescent Society. Israel claimed the ambulances were “terrorists” in “suspicious vehicles.” Video of the attack shows clearly marked ambulances with their lights flashing.
Great Country We’ve Got Here: Nothing cruel or unusual going on. Normal stuff. Feels good to be an American. Right? Well. Remember how Trump ordered 238 Venezuelan migrants to be sent from a Texas detention center to an El Salvador prison on the grounds that these people were allegedly gang members? Not that anyone believed Trump at the time, but now we know for sure that was all a big lie. According to a CBSNews investigation, many of the people who are now prisoners have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges.
RIP Jay North: The man who played Dennis in “Dennis the Menace” died at 73 from colon cancer.
Another Measles Death in Texas: In Texas, there are 481 cases associated with a measles outbreak. There have now been two deaths of school-age children. Both of the children who died were unvaccinated against measles. A Trump administration official said the latest death’s cause was still being looked at. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is a vaccine skeptic and who has gutted the Health and Human Services, will travel to Texas to console the families. What would actually help is if he stopped reversing all the progress we’ve made in public health in the last 100 years.
Music for your Monday: May this soothe you after all of that news.
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Last I read, 50 countries were looking to renegotiate their trade agreements with the US. In other words, the tariffs are working as intended. Keep up the good work President Trump!
Out voices and votes are not all we have, and they alone will not be sufficient to prevent a fascist takeover. I hope everyone who attended the rallies over the weekend had fun.
@2, See last post on Friday SLOG directly responsive to issue you raised.
Also whether the red shift was the result of people not voting for the Dems by staying home or voting for another candidate/party, the Dems still lost the votes they needed to win.
2024 was also a Black Swan of turnout and a record high. It was above historic norms and outside of turnout trends since 2000.
There is data out there that also indicates higher turnout no longer favors Dems. 2024 saw turnout of voters with no, or historically low rates of turnout, and they went for Trump. That bodes well for Dems in the midterms since low-participation voters typically go back to the couch for midterm and other elections. Votes Republicans can’t afford to lose.
My problem with the Harrell administration is that they have been too timid with sweeps. The city has a right and obligation to regulate behavior in public spaces. Pitching a tent in a public space should never be allowed. If you allow one, you have to allow them all.
Sure, it’s “medicine,” like ivermectin or drinking bleach.
@1, Those countries are stupid. If someone is trying to coerce you, and your response is to say let’s talk about what I can offer to get you to back off, the coercion has already succeeded.
The tariffs are an own goal Trump is scoring on himself. Those countries would be wise to stop interrupting Trump’s efforts to screw himself.
@2: Perhaps so. Attending the rallies and sharing one’s outrage with community is therapeutic, but any “fun” is extinguished whenever our finances enters our thoughts.
@1,
Can I get an ETA on the return of the thousands of dollars your boy is personally responsible for deleting from my 401K account?
@1 I thought the tariffs were intended to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Also, that thing you “last read” was bullshit from the White House.
He’s doing that thing where he creates a problem then congratulates himself for “fixing” it by restoring the conditions he changed for no reason. It’s hard to comprehend the depths of insecurity it must take to drag the entire planet into your quest for validation.
the tariffs are a shakedown. some (like Vietnam) will bend the knee, but the bigger players (China) won’t.
@8, FTW!
No RIP Clem Burke? Blondie’s drummer and one of the best to ever do it…
@8: That’s what Mary Trump and Mark Elias are saying. There’s no economic thinking – just babbling optics. It’s all so Donald can play the King of dealmaking.
@11, They are highly inconsistent.
Another example: The Stranger covered this extensively wrongdoing was alleged.
When no civil wrongdoing was found by a court, not a millimeter of ink is written.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/lawsuit-dismissed-in-police-killing-of-activist-wanted-for-portland-homicide/
You can tell there is no guiding philosophy behind it because even his own people can’t get the story straight. Is this a bargaining tactic or is he trying to bring manufactured jobs back? It can’t be both. Are the tariffs supposed to raise revenue or discourage people from buying things that feed into the revenue stream? Also can’t be both! The simplest explanation is he has no idea what he’s doing and everyone in his orbit is afraid to stand up to him.
@3: For a publication which venerated a Marxist Council Member and whose senior writer is a Marxist, The Stranger certainly seems to have a chronic soft spot for appropriation of shared public property by private individuals for private gain — and to the detriment of everyone else who wanted to use said property.
@14 You are underestimating Trump. Tariffs are a regressive tax which combined with tax cuts that favor the wealthy are a win-win for Trump’s true constituency, the uberwealthy. The chaos generated by the outlandish announcements are a good cover for more pragmatic goals.
@13: it’s not just TS. follow-ups are light at the Sea Times, too.
there were 2 separate murders blocks from my house this summer, one of a young father, and the perps were subsequently arrested. there is barely any info on who/what/why/when after the initial “there was a shooting” article.
@6 This might not be the best time to make trades in your retirement accounts. Have you considered simply holding your assets until the market recovers? This is how most investors manage risk, and by doing so, you can avoid taking losses during market downturns.
@16: At some point the uberwealthy will tire of no guests in their hotels and that their products aren’t selling – they’re not immune.
@9:
Precisely, tiny countries with limited economic diversification will bend the knee because they don’t have any other choice: I mean, I guess those penguins will be calling him up any moment now to renegotiate – something, I don’t know what – maybe the price of herring? Everyone else (read: China, Japan, Korea, the EU, et al) will simply focus their economic strategies towards each other and towards less restrictive, less vindictive emerging global economies. They’ll take a short term hit, no question, but what he’s done is to simply bring the rest of the industrialized world to the realization that the U.S. can no longer trusted to be a major player in in the system, and they’ll take their goods and services elsewhere.
@15:
Meanwhile, multi-multi-billionaires are raiding the public treasury, not to mention your retirement savings, for “private gain”, but because they’re super-rich, is that okay with you?
@19:
They already have more money than any of them can spend in multiple lifetimes, so I seriously doubt they’re going to care all that much that the rest of us can’t afford to stay in their hotels or buy their products – why do you think they’re going after our retirement savings and the public treasury? Hell, even if they take massive hits they’re still going to have plenty left over to buy up a shit-ton of stocks at fire sale prices. It’s all just one big diversification scheme to them.
@20, The E.U. and Canada are the leading and loudest voices for negotiation. That is catnip for our narcissistic bully-boy President.
Two deaths from measles.
Since the normal death rate is about 1 child per 1,000 cases, that suggests that only about 1/4 of cases have been reported.
F*in anti-vaxxers.
It seems a mental illness; this drive to amass more and more wealth beyond any imaginable need. They will spend SO MUCH to figure ways to avoid paying taxes, far more than the taxes even are. Any thought to how it affects the well being of the country is argued away by this ‘government waste’ and bullshit jingoism.
@23, When you spend say $100,000 and it saves you $300,000 in taxes, $100,000 looks like a bargain. You are happy to pay lawyers and accountants for the service.
Even the wealthy, when they use loopholes (that ought to be closed out of fairness – closing them won’t be the substantial revenue windfall imagined) to knock down their Federal Income Tax rate to say 11%, even 2% of humongous number, is still a giant number.
40% of all income taxes collected by the IRS come from the top 1% of Americans, even though they are 1/100th of the population, and that population produces 26% of income subject to income taxes. They contribute more income tax receipts than the bottom 95% of taxpayers combined. 72% of income tax collections by the IRS is from the top 10% of the population. As it should be. Closing loopholes might get those figures up to 50% and 79% respectively.
It’s also worth noting that those not in the top 10%, pay Social Security and Medicate taxes (15.3% of payroll) that the top 10% only pay on the first $176k of income, pay Federal Gas (and other regressive) Taxes that bite into the income of the bottom 90% at much higher rates than those regressive taxes bite into the incomes of the wealthy. Even with those regressive taxes, and looking at all Federal taxes collected, not just income taxes, the top 10% still fund over 1/2 the Federal budget.
The reality of income tax revenue, creates a tremendous incentive to legally avoid taxes and creates a huge potential revenue stream, that attracts tax and legal professionals to the escalating, and eternal, game of cat and mouse between tax code writers and tax professionals to read every comma, chosen word, and definition of each word in the code to look for “looholes.”
For that reason, we are better off taxing lots of things at low rates to fund the cost of civilization (government) so that the windfalls from a loophole in any particular tax, produces low tax savings. If the savings, are low, what a tax lawyer or consultant can get a taxpayer to pay them, will be even lower. Lower the incentive and reward for finding “loopholes.” (I put loopholes in quotes because they are the application of the letter of the law, as written, by courts applying the law).
Income and expenses are abstractions. They are hard to define in practice. Every time lawmakers define something in the tax code, there is some innovative new form of economic activity or financial instrument that doesn’t fit, vaguely fits, or maybe fits. If getting a court ruling in your favor costs $1,000,000 but you save $10 million in taxes, its worth risking the $1 million to roll the dice in court.
Even the European Union which has a legal system that is far more deferential and favorable to government tax authorities, keeps losing in E.U. Tax Court. Billions, often from just a single taxpayer, are on the line with each ruling, so governments and the taxpayer in question, are willing to spend hundreds of millions in legal fees to roll the dice in court.
Finally, what you might think of as enough, is never enough. Human wants and needs are insatiable, and resources are finite, or so economists across the political spectrum, who agree on almost everything else, tell us.
The largest philanthropic foundation in the world, which has $75 billion in assets, and has awarded over $76 billion in grants over just 24 years, gets funding requests far in excess of how much it has to give out every year. It has not been able to eradicate Malaria, make a measurable dent in eradicating international poverty among women, or dent education gaps for women around the world, which have been high funding priorities and objectives of their work, even with matches of as much as 3 to 1 by governments that share those priorities.
A way to think about inequality in a more tangible way, is that if you seized 100% of the assets of all the world’s billionaires, and used those funds to increase the income of the poorest 2 billion people around the globe, that survive on less that $2 a day in income, to $10 per day, you would exhaust the funds seized in roughly 440 days. What happens to those people on the 441st day? You can’t go to that funding source again, because there aren’t any billionaires left.
We best solve income inequality by raising the income of the bottom, rather than bankrupting the top. The latter might be viscerally appealing, but it is counter-productive. Who provides 40% of a U.S. or European government’s revenue then?
The math involved is rather tyrannical, daunting, and unyielding.
The tariffs are horrible economic and foreign policy; however, I think a major correction would have come to stock prices anyway. Not so abruptly for sure, but we would have had one.
The reason is that stocks are extremely over valued, as indicated by trading and multiples of corporate earnings that are way above the historic norm. There was a bubble in stock prices.
Whenever tenny brings up Kshama Sawant out of nowhere, take a drink.
@26: It reliably makes you cry, so simply do what you always do, when a random fact out of nowhere utterly eviscerates one or more of your dearly-held beliefs: ignore it. Avert your eyes from the big scary fact you can do nothing about, and instead look at the part where Charles Mudede, longstanding columnist here (even Dan Savage eventually pulled out!) and self-described Marxist, seems never to have criticized the private appropriations of Seattle’s shared public spaces. Seems a bit odd, don’t you think?
I wish I had known about the HANDS OFF! protests last Saturday. I would have at least made it to the one locally held in Bellingham, if not in Seattle. It is encouraging to see such high turnout, and with strong support and little opposition! This is what is needed to let the current fascist oligarchy know that their billionaire Nazi regime will not be tolerated. 8647!!! Mu$k and its Mein Trumpf for Prison in 2025!! No kings! Off with their heads and cowardly lil ‘shrooms!!
@20 COMTE: +1 BINGO for the WIN!!