lol.

If you had told me a decade ago that a former president would waltz back into the White House, torch the global economy, slap double-digit tariffs on damn near everything, spook the markets into evaporating over three trillion dollars in a single day, and call it a "booming economy" with a straight face—I would've thought it a particularly cruel and poorly conceived joke.

But here we are. 

Trump has levied a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports starting April 5. He's slapped 34% on Chinese goods. 25% on cars from Canada. 24% on Japan. 20% on the EU. Even Australia has come in for a kicking.

The Dow dropped 1,600 points. The Nasdaq cratered nearly 6%. Apple, Amazon, and Nvidia were all slammed. Volkswagen literally hiked sticker prices on cars overnight. Factories are already shutting down in Mexico and Canada. Beer's about to get more expensive because aluminum cans are now an international incident. And the man responsible, in his usual flex of ego and delusion, says: "Markets are going to boom."

This is ideology, as much as incompetence. It's dumb-as-a-box-of-hair economic nationalism in the empty drag of populism. It's an out-of-touch billionaire feeding you the illusion of sovereignty while snatching your wallet. It's a blundering manoeuvre designed to look strong and decisive while clumsily shifting the blame for failure onto "foreigners," "globalists," or anyone not named Donald Trump.

The damage is real. Global markets dove off a cliff. The dollar is sinking. Supply chains are seizing up. Allies are retaliating. The cost of living will spike. And this self-inflicted wound is being sold as some kind of righteous blow against the big, bad global order.

We live in the dumbest timeline.

But this?

This is weaponized stupidity. 

Trump has vandalized the global economy with the same reckless, self-absorbed impunity he brought to every other part of his career—bankruptcy, branding scams, real estate cons, steak sales, fake universities, insurrections, and multiple marriages. Now he's decided to do it again, with a pen and a podium, because he knows he can. 

He knows that half the country will cheer him on no matter how destructive the result. Why wouldn't they? They've been taught to root against themselves if it means someone else suffers more. Their vision of America isn't based on mutual prosperity—it's built on domination, resentment, and the pleasure of watching the other guy squirm.

The financial press is attempting - ham-fistedly - to treat all this with its usual deadpan neutrality. "Tariffs spark fears of recession." "Markets fall amid trade concerns." Concern. As if this is weather. As if it just rolled in from the coast, and, oh well, it's time to grab your umbrella. There is no such thing as a neutral tone when the world is being looted in broad daylight. Language should indicate, not obscure.

The only rational response to this level of bad-faith governance is to laugh. Because if you don't laugh, you scream. And if you scream, you're told you're hysterical or unhinged while the world burns down behind you.

This is a structural crisis. And it's not just about stocks. I wish it were about stocks. It's about a country so broken, propagandized, and high on its own supply that it confuses sabotage for strategy. It's about a system where crashing the economy can be spun as leadership if the narrative is controlled well enough. It's about a media ecosystem afraid to name reality and an electorate so burned by betrayal that they'll trust the arsonist over the firefighter. 

Donald Trump is a man with a history of bankruptcies doing what he always does: gambling with someone else's money. Except this time, it's yours. It's every worker laid off. Every single parent now facing higher grocery bills. Every business owner watching their supply chain crack in half. Every retiree seeing their 401(k) nosedive.

The damage is real. And it will get worse. We are not even close to the bottom yet.

Because this doesn't just shake the market. It shakes the Fed. It delays rate cuts. It raises prices. It hits consumer goods, healthcare, tech, food, and oil. It fractures alliances and emboldens adversaries. It hands China a propaganda win. It weakens labor. It punishes exporters. It shrinks small business margins. It craters consumer confidence.

This is the cost of delusion. This happens when the most powerful country on Earth decides that the laws of economics don't apply if you yell loud enough, when your government becomes a theater troupe and your president a professional grievance artist.

Everything is on fire. The arsonist is grinning on live TV. And the world is laughing.

But make no mistake: they're not laughing with you.