Harrop: Our beautiful economy was terrible thing to waste

Money aside, Americans risk losses of personal security as Elon Musk rants against Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Musk calls the beloved Social Security program a “Ponzi scheme.”

There is the hard-to-quantify loss of “domestic tranquility,” that is, the benefits of a well-functioning society as promised in the U.S. Constitution. Musk is cannibalizing old-fashioned government services that the citizenry expected as perks of being American — basics such as the Small Business Administration and having people at the IRS to answer questions. Trump now talks of privatizing the U.S. Postal Service.

Musk jumping like a chimpanzee as he waves his chain saw is an unappetizing sight. We all want to cut government waste, but shouldn’t he inquire into what the government workers he’s firing do? The Tesla Chain Saw Massacre is clearly sport for the richest man on Earth, but what about the rest of us?

Since Biden left office, the inflation rate has at times been inching up. And it’s not just eggs, which MAGA yaps about as Biden’s fault, not the result of bird flu. Trump posted on Truth Social an article by right-winger Charlie Kirk entitled, “Shut up About Egg Prices.” We shall ignore the order and note that the U.S. Agriculture Department expects egg prices to rise more than 40 percent this year.

Not surprising, given the nutcase Trump made head of the health department, the measles outbreak is growing.

Trump’s trade war against neighbors Mexico and Canada is as scary as it’s economically nuts. As a shaken commentator on Fox Business News graphically noted last week, “A sinkhole has opened up under the NASDAQ.”

During Tuesday’s chaos, Trump turned to the cameras and said that this economy is going to boom. “We can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way.” Exactly whom was he threatening?

When Ontario responded to Trump’s 25 percent tax by announcing a tax on the energy Canada sends Michigan, Minnesota and New York, Trump retaliated with a 50 percent tax on Canada. Things calmed down a bit when Ontario and Trump backtracked.

But on Wednesday, both Europe and Canada announced new tariffs against American products, hours after Trump slapped new tariffs on metal imports. Clearly, Trump isn’t the only one in charge.

We didn’t have these spectacles when Biden was president. The economic indicators were simply lovely. Perhaps a man who filed for bankruptcy six times is not exactly a financial “genius.”

One fears that when stocks show any kind of recovery, Trump will drag us back into his circus house of funny mirrors. Biden may have slowed down toward the end, but he never subjected America to lunacy. His administration sailed on smoothly.

Boy, do I miss Biden.