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The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread


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Posted
1 hour ago, Pasken said:

it's crazy how more and more soviet the exec branch is becoming. Just wait until they have to deal with a real disaster and no one wants to speak the truth about it.

Again?

Posted
3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

In my experience small business owners and entrepreneurs are a lot like lawyers- smart and usually well meaning people who are extremely adept in a focused way, but sort of blinkered by their own business conditions and easily surprised by realities outside. 

Small businesses owners are the lifeblood of any fascist movement. They always fall for the lie precisely because they think they're temporarily embarrassed oligarchs/billionaires, only to get tossed on the pyre with the rest of the rabble. 

The 1930s budding reich under Hitler enjoyed broad support from small businesses owners that got him his seat and power, only to get gutted or consumed by state-sponsored cartels ran by the old money ruling class

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Posted
7 hours ago, Mittens said:

I would imagine most in this thread are familiar w/ this account, but for those who aren't, click and read the thread.  I would argue that no one researches and crafts an argument better than he does.

 

I'm bored so I listed to the 20 minute clip and it's in my industry.  (Retail.  I know dick about knives.)

It's hard not to like the guy and he means well.  He also pointed out that yes, this is what they voted for.  (Black Rifle guy is a good guy as well.)  He gets into detail about how complicated supply chains are.  That's well and good but as someone in the knife industry, he should know that.  He should know that inputs and equipment are his imports.  He's like Ford or GM.  Yes, they might make the car here but parts are coming from everywhere.

He also brings up a point about how only "finished goods" should be tariffed but aren't the machines he needs "finished goods?"  

He also gets into detail on the money and how he's not hiring or expanding now.  (Well done, Trumpkins.)

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

I'm bored so I listed to the 20 minute clip and it's in my industry.  (Retail.  I know dick about knives.)

It's hard not to like the guy and he means well.  He also pointed out that yes, this is what they voted for.  (Black Rifle guy is a good guy as well.)  He gets into detail about how complicated supply chains are.  That's well and good but as someone in the knife industry, he should know that.  He should know that inputs and equipment are his imports.  He's like Ford or GM.  Yes, they might make the car here but parts are coming from everywhere.

He also brings up a point about how only "finished goods" should be tariffed but aren't the machines he needs "finished goods?"  

He also gets into detail on the money and how he's not hiring or expanding now.  (Well done, Trumpkins.)

Not a fan of Black Rifle. Want to support a small Veteran business for coffee? Check this dude out. 

https://aerialresupplycoffee.com/

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Posted
4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It's wildcat I think that points out, rightly, that a lot of these people, the petit bourgeouisie, are the main Trump supporters.  

But, given how predictable the harm to businesses that rely on imported products (/Gary Oldman EVERYONE gif), it's astonishing that they're caught short by any of this.

And, it bothers me quite a lot because these are most of my clients (I am unsure how many were Trump voters, but all of them are like the MKC guy as far as having their oxen gored).

It's wild watching that podcast video. They seem like intelligent reasonable guys who work hard to run a business. Trump is all about chaos. Why did so many of these small business guys not consider how bad chaos might be for their businesses? From these lower level guys all the way up to Jamie Dimon types saying we need to get over worrying about tariffs. As a small business guy myself, it's mind blowing to me how enormous a blind spot all these guys have. FAFO indeed and we all get to pay for it. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

You may be joking, but you shouldn’t be.  I would almost guarantee this is exactly what is going to happen. 

There could be some incredible stock short selling opportunities because of this. Market zooms on fake economic numbers then individual stocks get clobbered when they report quarterly results that show the affects of tariffs and other dotard stupidity. 
 

Then again, dotard will probably tell companies to report fake results to prop up the illusion. It’s not like the SEC will go after them. 

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Posted

Not all small business folks are Trumpkins. My wife and her brother hate MAGA and run a small business (sold it in May, but still run it). They import from China, Japan, Turkey, and other places. Any small business that imports and didn’t plan for this had their head in the sand.

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Posted
57 minutes ago, Orale said:

It's wild watching that podcast video. They seem like intelligent reasonable guys who work hard to run a business. Trump is all about chaos. Why did so many of these small business guys not consider how bad chaos might be for their businesses? From these lower level guys all the way up to Jamie Dimon types saying we need to get over worrying about tariffs. As a small business guy myself, it's mind blowing to me how enormous a blind spot all these guys have. FAFO indeed and we all get to pay for it. 

The Knife guy came to the realization.  That's what was so interesting to me.  He's also a very discretionary and expensive item, whereas the coffee guy has a bit of a better position.

But yes, there's a YUGE blindspot right now.  I've been in consumer retail and people are in for a huge shock.  It's not going to happen overnight but this time next year is going to look a lot different.  Meanwhile, the stock market is at an all time high.

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Posted

Upon further research, the interviewer is not THE Black Rifle guy, but seems to promote them.

He's been on Fox and other righty stuff quite a bit, I didn't dig into what topics.

If he's a Trumpkin, he sure seemed skeptical of the tariff policy and probably prompted knife guy to go some places he didn't really want to go.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Oooh y’all - this is the good stuff:

image.thumb.png.9772a87415273039752f5cba7b6e572d.png

Elon has his queen. He willl use this and run her as an "alternate". Shits about to get fun. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Elon has his queen. He willl use this and run her as an "alternate". Shits about to get fun. 

Goddam right.

Oh and fuck this guy:

image.thumb.png.689d61868f5ef86e3311c71596d423b0.png

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Posted
2 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Elon has his queen. He willl use this and run her as an "alternate". Shits about to get fun. 

Yep, can’t forget how many of these losers are grifters.  And Musk has the money to buy off some of those.  Imo that’s the larger long term issue for the R’s vs Epstein.  
 

Let them fight.  

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Posted
Just now, ChiTownDoc said:

Yep, can’t forget how many of these losers are grifters.  And Musk has the money to buy off some of those.  Imo that’s the larger long term issue for the R’s vs Epstein.  
 

Let them fight.  

Fuck em. They brought this shit on, let them sink. If I was a R politician I would be calling Elon. But I would not drive a CT. I still have some standards. 

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Posted
39 minutes ago, The Dog said:

Oooh y’all - this is the good stuff:

image.thumb.png.9772a87415273039752f5cba7b6e572d.png

As Trump has not selected her for any position in his cabinet or agencies or embassies, despite him hiring a bus load of idiots and incompetents, she probably realizes she’s not attractive enough to be a female appointee in his administration. 

But she is still a skilled grifter, with a complete absence of morality, so her going after potential Elmo money seems like a rational and potentially very profitable strategy.

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Posted
5 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

There could be some incredible stock short selling opportunities because of this. Market zooms on fake economic numbers then individual stocks get clobbered when they report quarterly results that show the affects of tariffs and other dotard stupidity. 
 

Then again, dotard will probably tell companies to report fake results to prop up the illusion. It’s not like the SEC will go after them. 

This is what I need to know.  How can a very lazy investor make a shit load of money off false economic numbers,  wild stock fluctuations, and  the inevitable republican recessions?

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Posted
3 hours ago, The Dog said:

Goddam right.

Oh and fuck this guy:

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Fuck that guy.

I've been carrying Benchmade knives for 25+ years. Much better quality and not MAGA.

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Posted
This is what I need to know.  How can a very lazy investor make a shit load of money off false economic numbers,  wild stock fluctuations, and  the inevitable republican recessions?

Long term investing. Buy on the way down and back up. If you’re retired now - hopefully you’re in something stable. If the market goes to zero, we are going to have bigger things to worry about than investing.
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Posted
15 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

In what scenario would markets “go to zero”?

It's not like our president has a history of running whatever he's in charge of into the ground and then moving on to the next thing. It's hard to predict how a failure will happen, given the variety of unnecessary risks and stresses on the "free" market system, but at this rate there's not gonna be any money left for consumers to consume and participate in capitalism 

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Posted
18 hours ago, Orale said:

Why did so many of these small business guys not consider how bad chaos might be for their businesses? From these lower level guys all the way up to Jamie Dimon types saying we need to get over worrying about tariffs. As a small business guy myself, it's mind blowing to me how enormous a blind spot all these guys have. FAFO indeed and we all get to pay for it. 

Look no further than the mortgage and real estate thread on DT. Real estate professionals overwhelmingly voted for the administration because they wanted lower rates and better business conditions, which confused me then, but whatever.
I am now shocked to realize that many or most of them seem to be under a vague impression that the Fed controls mortgage rates.

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Posted
On 7/30/2025 at 8:12 AM, Post Oak said:

Once again Texas shoots itself in the dick

  Hide contents

Congress’ new budget bill is an energy earthquake. It could wipe out tens of gigawatts of energy production, just as we’re experiencing load growth unlike anything since the 1960’s. It will drive power bills higher for families and factories, and give China the upper hand in the race for 21st century economic supremacy.

To understand in more detail the impacts of the federal budget bill, this week on the Energy Capital Podcast, I talked with Dan O’Brien, senior modeling analyst at Energy Innovation. His team modeled what this bill really means for Texas and the numbers should stop us in our tracks.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know I’ve warned about this moment for months. Now, the data is here. It’s worse than we thought. We were on a path to energy abundance and we’re about to get energy scarcity including increased risk of blackouts and much higher electric bills.

From Ramp to Cliff: What This Bill Actually Does

Here’s what Congress passed:

* Ends clean energy tax credits abruptly. No glide path, no transition, just a cliff.

* Imposes impossible project timelines that most developers can’t meet.

I’ve written before about how this creates scarcity, not abundance (Energy Scarcity). We’re pulling the cheapest, fastest-growing resources off the table while demand is surging. That’s a recipe for higher prices and weaker reliability.

And make no mistake: this isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening right when Texas has proven that solar and storage are great for reliability and affordability.

The Modeling: 77 GW Gone

Dan’s modeling tells the story:

* 77 gigawatts of lost clean energy in Texas, including over 50 gigawatts of solar and over 20 gigawatts of wind)

* Only 2 gigawatts of additional gas

* Household power bills up $400–$500 a year

* Industrial energy costs up 50%

* Tens of billions in lost rural tax revenue

Put that in perspective: ERCOT’s entire summer peak is about 85 gigawatts. This bill wipes out nearly that much future clean power before it’s even built.

These numbers aren’t isolated. Princeton’s REPEAT Project and Columbia’s Climate Knowledge Initiative show the same trend: abruptly ending credits doesn’t save money. It costs money—because you’re replacing cheap renewables with expensive alternatives, or worse, with nothing at all.

 

Demand Is Exploding, So Why Are We Pulling Back?

At the same time, Texas demand is skyrocketing. From 2021 to 2025, Texas has experience 6% year-over-year growth, the fastest since the 1960s. AI data centers, crypto, and industrial electrification are all plugging in at once.

And here’s the kicker: the resources meeting that demand surge aren’t gas or coal. They’re wind, solar, and batteries. They’re 92% of what’s been added since 2021. In the first half of 2025, wind and solar made up 40% of ERCOT’s generation mix. Batteries are breaking records almost monthly, keeping the grid balanced during extreme heat and sudden shifts.

ERCOT calculated summer energy emergency risk dropped from 16% to under 1% in one year, because of solar and storage. We have the data. We have the results. So why are we sabotaging it?

The Human Side: Jobs and Rural Texas

The energy sector is one of the largest drivers of job growth in Texas. These are real people—60,000 Texans working in wind, solar, and storage, including 6,000 veterans. It’s rural school districts balancing their budgets with wind and solar tax base and farmers and ranchers keeping their land in their families for another generation.

It’s welders, electricians, and manufacturers in counties that haven’t seen this level of investment in decades.

 

Global Stakes: China’s Electrostate Moment

Zoom out. While we’re cutting our legs out from under us, China is sprinting ahead. Last year, they added 400 GW of clean energy, several Texases worth of power. Last month, they put in 90 gigawatts of solar. The Financial Times calls them the first “electrostate.”

The U.S.? We added 60 GW in 2024. And now we’re debating LNG power plants that don’t exist. As I wrote in Energy Submission: this isn’t energy dominance. It’s energy surrender.

If we abandon clean energy leadership now, we’re not just risking higher bills—we’re giving away the 21st century.

There’s Still Time: Ramp, Don’t Cliff

I’m not arguing for permanent subsidies. We should phase them out, but smartly, with predictability. A ramp-down avoids price shocks, keeps manufacturing momentum, and protects rural tax bases while we scale what’s next.

We’ve already proven the formula: reliability up, prices down, emissions falling. It’s not theoretical. It’s working. And throwing it away overnight isn’t policy, it’s ideology.

The Bottom Line

The Texas grid is stronger than it’s ever been, because of solar and storage. That’s not my opinion; that’s ERCOT’s own data. Reliability is improving, costs are falling, and we’re finally catching up to the energy future the rest of the world is racing toward.

This bill reverses that progress. It’s a choice between abundance and scarcity, between leadership and surrender. And the clock is ticking.

Timestamps

* 00:00 – Introduction

* 02:00 – What is the federal budget bill and why is it important?

* 04:30 – Impact on Texas power

* 07:00 – Why is there only a tiny increase in new gas capacity

* 10:00 – Modeling Assumptions and Safe Harbor Provisions

* 12:30 – Demand forecasts and modeling variables

* 14:00 – Residential energy cost increases: $480/year

* 16:00 – Why that could be worse if Treasury’s guidance is restrictive

* 19:00 – Why are power prices high if renewables are lowering costs?

* 21:00 – 54% increase in power costs for large commercial & industrial customers

* 25:00 – Job losses from the federal bill

* 29:00 – Rural community impacts and manufacturing losses

* 30:00 – Policymakers could revisit this policy as the impacts take hold

* 32:00 – Phasing out credits would protect consumers and end them permanently

 

* 77 gigawatts of lost clean energy in Texas, including over 50 gigawatts of solar and over 20 gigawatts of wind)

* Only 2 gigawatts of additional gas

* Household power bills up $400–$500 a year

* Industrial energy costs up 50%

* Tens of billions in lost rural tax

 

 

For comparison, those 60,000 clean energy jobs currently in Texas are significantly more valuable, environmentally friendly and safer than the entirety of the 42,000 coal miner jobs that exist in the entire US. Coal is a very small industry compared to the rest of the energy market, but it has an outsized voice in politics for other reasons. It should be a national goal to get rid of entirely as an energy source, as it naturally gets replaced with green energy technologies that are constantly making gains in efficiency and cost. The next Dem president should ban exports of coal and essentially cut the balls off the industry to all but remove it from the field. Even other fossil fuels are preferable to coal for energy generation. 

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Posted
20 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Yup.  And it is not unreasonable to predict that other countries will stop investing in United States bonds and equities and/or the US dollar once they realize Trump sits on his shitter at night and decides what all the job and inflation numbers will be.   The combination of constantly threatening J Pow - and now essentially trying to create a path to falsify economic data that the Fed will utilize to govern US financial policy, I’m pretty sure the money people in other countries who of necessity must have accurate empirical data in order to form their own competent financial policy will go…

IMG_5050.gif.45bc71066ec544a4c05ac6f61d214fca.gif

Eventually, investing in the United States with Trump as president (with a bunch of people acting as guard rails, preventing him from doing his stupid, worst instincts)  will now be analyzed as investing in an unstable country with an unstable president who pulls tariff numbers out of his ass, has no idea how trade networks work, and more importantly who has no guard rails from continuing his five-year-old petulant child, who is dumber than shit demanding that everything goes his way.

I had dinner with my ex longtime law partner Friday - and after I finished bitching about everybody seeming to bend the knee to that dip shit - she reminded me that as POTUS he is the most powerful individual in the world, coupled with a childish, vindictive personality and a substandard intelligence.    She said we were living in the twilight zone episode, “ it’s a good life”.   Billy Mummy played a six-year-old kid with psychic powers who had either destroyed the world, or moved his small town someplace else in the universe.   He had unlimited powers and could read minds, and everybody had to 100% toady to the six year-old - or he would cause them unimaginable harm.  Why? Because he was incredibly powerful.  Worse, he was immature, cruel, had zero empathy for other people, insisted on always being right, and would punish or destroy anyone who did not disagree with his every whim or opinion. 

IMG_5051.gif.2baf9c147b9f1683986546ab0326a74c.gif

Fuck!!  She is right.  A perfect analogy. 

 

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Posted
31 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

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Worth pointing out that apparel is a classic case of manufacturing and import/export.  There's raw material (cotton wool silk synthetics), intermediate goods (thread fabric), and finished goods (the actual clothing), and an import/export/tariff scenario at every step.

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Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

It's funny because if Harris would have won, we probably would have seen the market continue the same trajectory it had with Biden and the Fed would have cut rates 2 or three times by now.

that's the part that enrages me the most. this regime could have just coasted on the policies from their predecessors and claimed all the good coming from it as their own, and I would have been fine with it because I wouldn't be lying awake at night wondering if I can keep my business or not. 

Edited by Longhorn_Fan68
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