The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The stock market has the Jitters, apparently, because yesterday the Dow dropped nearly 1000 points and the NASDAQ fell over 4%. Right now the Dow is down another 500. I long ago gave up my dream of becoming a hedge fund CEO so maybe I’m not the right hombre to weigh in on fiscal policies under the new Trump regime, but I do know corporations and even small businesses like my own hate uncertainties. Will those tariffs drive up the cost of my stained glass? You bet it will. Will they kick up the price of my Canadian lead came and zinc border metals? Hell, yes!

Last night some arsonist in Seattle and Gomorrah burned a few Teslas sitting in a warehouse, no doubt venting their anger at Musk and DOGE, not sure what the thinking was there, but a message of some sort was delivered. Lately I’ve noticed a few bumper stickers that read: I Bought This Tesla Before Elon Went Crazy. Call me a hopeless optimist but I’m hoping to see plenty more of those and another one that says: I Voted for Trump Before Donald Went Power Mad.

These are very strange times in the Land of the Free, Home of the Capitalist. My neighbor dropped by today and before we could say Shut My Mouth we were debating politics, his Libertarianism to my Cynicism. He thinks tariffs might be a good remedy for what’s wrong with America because, well, because Trump is a great businessman, knows what he’s doing, knows how to handle trade negotiations and delivers a hard deal. Employment, he says, is already up. So … he missed the government layoffs and firings by DOGE evidently. Not real jobs.

I said I’d bet him a dozen eggs soon to be worth a bitcoin or two that this economy will take a hit from Trump’s recklessness, same as his casinos he drove into bankruptcy, smart businessman that he was. But … really, what do I know. These Trump Bibles might be selling faster than bitcoins and the gold tennis shoes, maybe even better.

When we finally called our debate a draw to save a friendship, my neighbor said he doesn’t pay attention to the news, too depressing. It was all I could do not to mention I pretty much assumed that.

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Down here on the South End where unemployment figures fly in the face of national statistics showing the lowest percentages in decades for the rest of the country, we layabouts and welfare queens rely heavily on our one main crop. Nettles. Oh sure, there are other industries down this way, everything from dog grooming to … well, real estate sales, I guess. Let’s be honest here, most of us are either retired or on the dole. We’re not apologetic about either, but those real estate agents, maybe they should be.

So when this tariff war started up we didn’t think it would have much of an impact on us local yokels, not unless the cost of dog shampoo went through the ceiling. Like a lot of fact-averse Americans, we just figured we’d poke along, harvest our bounty of wild nettles for the Asian markets which revere the stuff as a supernatural aphrodisiac and an organic antidote for erectile dysfunction. If ignorance is bliss, we found out the hard way that maybe we got it backwards. And if the Asians looked at a map of the island, they’d realize it looks like a Before ad for Viagra.

The Chinese took umbrage to the billions of yuans in tariffs the Trump boyz piled on them and so, in a tit for tat, watch THIS gringo, socked us with import duties mostly on products from the red states to teach the Trump-tolerant a hard lesson in economics. As if they’d be likely to learn…. Soybeans, wheat, apples, ginseng, oh, and you betcha, nettles. We weren’t exactly making a killing on those nettle bales shipped by container ships bound for Ghuangzou, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Dongghaun, but we eked out a meager living now that marijuana was legalized here in La-La Land and ruined our underground economy.

So now our unemployment figures, already at record highs, are going to shoot up stratospherically. Great. Thanks a lot, Mr. Prezident! Don’t blame us when creeping socialism rears its ugly head. You’re the one who put us on welfare. And maybe, just maybe, you could offer us what you offered those soybean farmers, our own subsidy. Capitalism, right?

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