In the April 2, 2025, episode of the Donald Trump Show, the star, Donald Trump, hosted a “Liberation Day” presentation in which he displayed a tote-board listing extreme tariffs each country of the world would be required to pay thenceforth for the “privilege” of having their products accepted for sale in the United States. Over the next two days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell just under 4,000 points. The other two major markets — the NASDAQ and S&P — fell by similar amounts in percentage terms. It was the greatest April drop since the Great Depression.
On the next market day, a 90 day pause was announced in the enforcement of the tariffs. During the pause, a uniform 10% tariff would be charged on most goods from most countries. Countries were called upon to make their best counter-offer to the extreme Liberation Day tariff announced for their country. Failure to do so could result in even higher tariffs than originally announced.
The announcement was made just before the opening of the U.S. stock markets in order to assure a strong rebound. The markets did, in fact, rebound.
Asked for a response to the enormous plunge in the markets, and explanation as to why the star paused his tariffs, the audience was informed that the star being a 4-dimensional stable genius had expected the market reaction and planned all along to initiate the pause. World leaders would now come a-begging for relief. Those incompetent leaders who didn't would cause their people to suffer.
In the weeks ahead, the star, Donald Trump, made wild claims, each day, often just before the opening of the stock markets, declaring trillions of dollars of new investments to expand U.S. manufacturing. The fictional reality-news outlet Fox News repeated these claims day and night.
Refusing to read the lines that the show's writers had composed for them, real-reality media reported that the claims were vastly over-stated. Instead, they reported that many of the announcements had already been made months or years earlier by the Biden Administration and now were announced again with great fanfare, on the show's gilt main stage-set, the Oval Office, as having been achieved by the deal making genius of the star, Donald Trump. The normal annual investment plans of large corporations were also announced with great fanfare as responses to the Great Reality-President's great tariff plan. Corporate CEOs stood admiringly beside the star hoping that their acquiescence would release their companies from crushing tariffs.
The Department of Government Efficiency, it was repeatedly announced, had made over a trillion dollars of savings, in spite of the fact that real-reality media inspection of the claims showed savings of some $100 billion. A small gain, especially given the government dysfunction it has left in its wake.
The Donald Trump Reality-President Show steadily coöpted more and more of the stock markets into its story lines. It was potentially bad business for popular analysts to fail to read the lines that the show's writers were providing. Tentatively, but irresistibly, the markets rose, until the star could boast record levels.
But, while the Donald Trump Show was all being directed, by select members of the Heritage Foundation Directors' Guild, with the expected results, given its infinite emergency budgets and its reality-show obligation to create realities in line with running story lines, there was still a very big problem to be solved. After 90 days would lapse, the full tariffs would once again be enforced. There could be no stopping. Massively greater tariff revenues were absolutely essential to the show's big finale of eliminating progressive taxation of the Ultra-Wealthy.
Dedicated viewers could not help but wonder. What plans were being made to prevent another Great Depression style stock market crash?
There was only so much that markets could be expected to do and accept from out of a reality-show script that promised disaster. The tariffs could only be applied in what was left of the real world. The real-reality business losses would be enormous. A great many investors would feel obligated to sell ahead of the prospect of steep real-reality economic losses.
When August 1st arrived, the markets could only plunge again. In the first half hour the Dow Jones Industrial Average nose-dived over 750 points. At the very least, the markets could be expected shortly to trip the first stock market circuit breaker — a halt to trading in order to prevent panic selling. That alone would cause such an uproar that continuing the full tariffs would once again be highly problematical. At the very least they would have to be paused again.
But there was no time for this. Mid-term elections were rapidly approaching. Full control of the government could be lost if the reality-President appeared to be failing to deliver his reality-show promises of the greatest economy in history. Even blaming Joe Biden could fail to satisfy even the show's most dedicated fans.
And then it happened. At 10:02 AM, all three major markets, in unison, totally reversed direction, pulling back almost half of the markets' losses. No stunning news story had caused the about-face. It was a breath-taking move. The odds against such a spontaneous move were astronomical. By standard rules of thumb, such a move required, at minimum, a sudden influx of over half a trillion dollars of buy orders. But there it was.
Still the enormous downward momentum began to turn down all the major markets yet again. The influx of buy orders did not wait this time for a plunge of 750 points. Again, all major markets reversed direction in unison to erase the loss. Investor confidence then somewhat recovered. The markets traded sideways for the rest of the day. In spite of the deep plunge, inexplicable recovery (to still steep losses), and the continuation of the tariffs at the maximum rates, the Monday morning Futures Markets showed substantial gains, such as traditionally indicate high investor optimism. The markets opened with matching gains and continued to have a strong up-day recovering most of their previous Friday's losses.
Investors' reaction to their investments being saved by an apparent miracle of God was... silence. Within days the star of the Donald Trump Reality Show was touting new market highs. The stock market had been coöpted into the Donald Trump Reality Show. The star was totally feeling his God-like powers. He had been right after all. The U.S. economic institutions must follow his orders. There must be no more resistance.
But economies are complex things. Keeping stocks artificially high while company earnings are flat, at best, has arrived at another even more fearful red-flag. A statistic over which a reality-show president has no control. Something called the average market Price-to-Earnings Ratio has been inflated to nearly 30/1. Historically, this has only occurred prior to major stock market crashes such as the 1929 crash, that led to the 10 year long Great Depression, and the 2000 Dot-Com crash. Always it occurs when artificial means have grossly inflated the value of the stock markets.
Also from the Virtual Vanaprastha:
- Donald Trump and the Donald Trump Show starring Donald Trump. July 6, 2025. "Fate gave him a large inheritance, mediocre business prowess and the wiles to realize that his genius lay in opportunism, self-promotion and the ability to manipulate others."
- Harvard and Columbia: What Stephen Miller, Russ Vought and the Heritage Foundation Know. June 2, 2025. "beginning with the stock market crash of 1929, they discovered that not all of the Progressive activists that had supposedly been swept away had actually disappeared."
- Shelving the books in a dying democracy. March 24, 2025. "I only now begin to shelve books, in fits and starts, with the scenes I am seeing replaying over and over as I do."
- Public Health Alert: Trump Variant Corona Virus 2025. February 17, 2025. "It is now running rampant through the body politic furiously working to hollow out its institutions and shift taxation..."
- Be sure to check out the Browser's Guide to the Library of Babel.
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