As the Trump Trade War lurches onward, with another heaping amount of uncertainty added over the weekend, China just made a move that could have drastic worldwide consequences. They haven't fully committed to playing hardball, but they are certainly signalling that it might be their next step. And (to mix game-playing metaphors), in this particular game, China holds all the cards. They've got a royal flush, and we don't even have a pair of twos to work with.

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James Carville's famous political maxim ("It's the economy, stupid") needs updating. As we all ride out the Trump Slump in various ways, what we've got now is: "It's the stupid economy." The people running things are stupid. They are making stupid decisions. They have no clue whatsoever what they are doing, and it shows. Stupid is as stupid does. Welcome to The Stupid Economy, folks.

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I've always thought that Donald Trump picked the wrong 1970s gay anthem as his favorite tune for his rallies. Instead of the Village People's "YMCA," he really should have gone with "Macho Man." Because that's his secret dream -- to be seen as a real tough guy. But more on that in a moment....

Today, as the markets continued their confusion, Trump finally blinked -- on all countries except China, it appears. I say "it appears" since nobody's entirely sure of the details, since there was no formal announcement or well-thought-out policy revealed, instead it was just another knee-jerk social media post with few actual details about how things are going to work now.

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What exactly is the point of the Trump trade war? Asking this question to different people in the White House gets you different answers, and Trump himself (as usual) contradicts himself almost daily, attempting to have things both ways. The clueless nature of the entire exercise is becoming more and more apparent as the first week of the Trump trade war draws to a close.

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Well, not really, not yet -- not enough to justify that particular word, but hey, we couldn't resist....

While it doesn't rise to the level of a "revolt" quite yet, there is already a significant pushback on the Trump tariff war coming from within the ranks of his own party. One Senate bill to rein in the tariffs already passed with four Republican votes, and that number has now grown to seven GOP senators who are cosponsoring an even wider clawback of the constitutional power of levying taxes from the White House. Significantly, now a House Republican has said he's going to introduce a companion bill in the House.

This isn't enough -- not yet, at any rate. But it is rather surprising to see happen so quickly. But then this whole self-inflicted economic crisis has been moving rather swiftly all around, so perhaps it's not that surprising to see.

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So, does everyone feel wonderfully "liberated" now?

President Donald Trump, in his second term, decided to liberate himself from having any adults in the room when he made important decisions. Instead, he surrounded himself with ass-kissers and other assorted sycophants, all of whom tell him he is great no matter what crazy notion pops into his head.

This is the result. Yesterday, the Dow Jones average lost 1,600 points. Today it lost another 2,200 points. Trump has singlehandedly crashed the economy -- and we're only two days in.

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There is no shortage of colorful language (and memes!) being used today to describe the new Trump Tax we're all about to pay -- after having been "liberated" from, y'know, paying less money for stuff. I chose the term financial pundit Ross Gerber used to describe it for the headline, as it seemed the most descriptive:

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So... is everyone ready to pay more for everything? Because that's why America elected Donald Trump president, right?

On Wednesday, Trump will be announcing sweeping tariffs on the entire rest of the world. As he likes to put it, "tariff" is his new favorite word in the dictionary. But consumers are likely to call it what it will actually be, to them: a tax. A big fat "Trump Tax" on all sorts of things consumers buy. Which will likely drive up inflation, and which will definitely hit consumers hard in the pocketbook.

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In keeping with the "world turned upside-down" nature of this week, we are going to start with a few things that haven't been front-and-center, then we'll circle in to a bigger-picture take, and finally we'll fit in the big story of the week at the end.

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In what universe does information about exactly what (and where) American warplanes are targeting, the timing of airstrikes, and what weapons will be used in those airstrikes not qualify as "classified information"? That is a jaw-dropping concept, but that is one of the excuses being lamely trotted out for the massive security breach that recently happened. The secretary of Defense just decided on his own, willy-nilly, that such information was somehow perfectly acceptable to talk about on unsecured systems (possibly even including private, non-governmental phones)? That's without even adding in "with a journalist in on the chat" -- but that is indeed the tack some are attempting to take right now. It's all just no big deal, they insist. Nothin' to see here, folks!

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