Notices by b9AcE (b9ace@todon.eu)

"Condemnations and call for investigation from experts following the attack on the Freedom Flotilla" which is the civilian convoy striving to break Israel's war crime blockade against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip of Palestine, but was attacked in international waters close to midnight to today.
https://freedomflotilla.org/2025/05/02/condemnations-and-call-for-investigation-from-experts-following-the-attack-on-the-freedom-flotilla/

For example, Francesca Albanese, whose job title is United Nations "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967", commented the following:
─────
Emergency: I received a distressed call from the people of the Freedom Flotilla that is carrying essential food and medicine to the starving Gaza population.
I call on concerned state authorities, including maritime authorities, to support the ship and its crew as needed. I trust the competent authorities will also ascertain the facts and intervene appropriately.
─────

"This is a war crime" commented Greta Thunberg,
one of the activists from 21 countries waiting to go on board the Freedom Flotilla at Malta where one of its ships, "The Conscience", instead was attacked 00:23.
Greta was going to board the Swedish "Ship to Gaza".

Greta told Aftonbladet, one of the two major evening papers in Sweden (translated):
─────
We have been here on Malta about a week to begin the journey to Gaza with humanitarian aid. We were going to try to fulfill our promise to the Palestinians to do all in our power to try to break the total blockade on aid to Gaza.
[...]
There is rather much chaos here right now. Ship to Gaza and Freedom Flotilla have been trying to send 35 boats to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza. Previously Israel stopped almost every boat, so we suspect either Israel or allies are behind this attack.
[...]
The boat cannot currently travel because then it will sink, due to the hole in the hull caused by the attacks.
[...]
All human rights activists here will continue to try to fulfill the promise we made to the Palestinians to do everything we can to hold war criminals accountable and end our governments' complicity in genocide.
─────

Pic 1+2: attacked ship's hull after the attack.
Pic 3: Greta on Malta with Jeanette Escanilla from Ship to Gaza Sweden

Video from the Freedom Flotilla.

The civilian Freedom Flotilla were waiting outside Malta, where Greta Thunberg was to board, to then go break Israel's illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip of Palestine,
when they instead were attacked, put on fire and in maritime distress.

The ship striving to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza, "Freedom Flotilla Attacked — Ship in Distress, Immediate Action Needed from Maltese Government
[...]
Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull. The last communication in the early morning of the 2nd of May, indicated the drones are still circling the ship."
https://freedomflotilla.org/2025/05/02/freedom-flotilla-attacked-ship-in-distress-immediate-action-needed-from-maltese-government/

Self-proclaimed fascist (anti-labor ideology) group Blue-and-Black Movement held rally on Intl Workers' Day today in Tampere, Finland, met antifascist resistance.
https://yle.fi/a/74-20159199?origin=rss

The group is named in reference to the fascist "Lapua Movement" which attempted a coup d'état in 1932 including mass-murdering civilian opponents and its successor "Patriotic People's Movement" which e.g. promoted Hitler and Mussolini and their activities. The party-colors of those fascist groups in 1929-1944 were white blue and black, while their youth mob was was named the "Blue-and-Blacks".
This current times fascist group clearly promotes fascism grabbing power over the people in Finland through another coup attempt. Then as now defended by the police, up to the point the police not members of the fascist group get attacked by those fascists they defended, because both are at their core authoritarian.

Again, import tariffs are not "paid by other countries", they are added to the thing's cost at the border, so unless some corporation decides to be nice and give of their profit margin (hah!) that means the tariff is aimed at the domestic populace and WILL disproportionately impact the low income people for whom the price increase will be a larger proportion of their meager income for things they can't just "deprioritize", like basic foods, while the opulent can just decide to buy a yacht fewer that year.

Long term, some production may move to surrender to Trump's aggression (horrible idea, considering Trump's instability) but for important stuff like food, time it would take to mass-establish new farms at required quantity is definitely more than one season (often = year) I'd say and in some cases some products just actually can not be produced in USA so in such cases the economic inflation was just drastically increased because Trump has more experience of bankruptcies than understanding of tariffs.

Local production IS good, environmentally, income equality, labor rights, etc, but it CAN NOT be implemented at immediate whim of a decree. It is just not even theoretically possible, even if everyone in the entire world wanted it, which due to Trump's rhetoric is absolutely not the case now.

─────
Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2tn off Wall Street
[...]
Drawing comparisons with the market crashes at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2008 financial collapse, the sell-off swept the globe [...].

When New York trading opened, the S&P 500 index of the US’s leading companies fell by as much as 4.3% in morning trading, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq fund down 5.1%.

[...] Trump said: “I think it’s going very well. It was an operation like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing. I said this would be exactly the way it is … We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”
─────
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/03/global-markets-turmoil-trump-tariffs-wall-street-downturn

Trump yesterday: "The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom."

The market today: "Trump tariffs wipe $5 trillion off Wall Street"
https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-trading-day-2025-04-04/
"Dow plunges 2,200 points, Nasdaq enters bear market as Trump tariffs spark worst meltdown since 2020"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-plunges-2200-points-nasdaq-enters-bear-market-as-trump-tariffs-spark-worst-meltdown-since-2020-200042876.html
Tesla -10.45%
Amazon -4.16%
Microsoft -3.57%
nVidia -7.76%
Intel -11.5%
Palantir -11.47%
Amazon -4.15%
Apple -6.75%
Google -2.24&
Meta -4.26%
Netflix -6.48%
AstraZeneca -7.39%
BlackRock -7.33%
Et cetera, et cetera...

Several of those I've been boycotting for over a decade.
Wheee! 😀

Oh, also, the new Nintendo Switch 2's preorders were postponed indefinitely due to Trump's tariffshit.

Banks went Trump-tariffshit plumetting too. :-]
The market fear index (VIX) is around 40 (very high).
https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-stress-graphic-pix-2025-04-04/

Also, Klarna Bank, worldwide major within primarily online-shops payment processing, which was going to launch on the New York Stock Exchange... decided to not do that, indefinitely, due to the Trump-tariffshit, as well as some other launches likewise.

*boom* *boom* *boom*

How to make your allies walk away, friends despise you and neutral seek to create or join blocs specifically to oppose you? Trumpism!
"Trump implements sweeping tariffs ranging from 10% to 49% on foreign countries"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/apr/02/donald-trump-tariffs-trade-latest-live-us-politics-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-67ed9d768f08188975c641bc#block-67ed9d768f08188975c641bc
But overall, most of all you just shot every resident of USA in the foot.
You dolt.

MAGA: Making Animosity Globally Ascend
MAGA: Misguided Actions Generate Adversaries

Again, problem isn't tariffs per se, but the incredibly imbecilic execution.
After USA spent about a century coercing the current "free trade", to push its less desired jobs abroad with outsourcing, etc leading to dismantling of labor rights and protections worldwide, through its enforcement and wreckers like WTO, IMF, etc but also actual wars and coups worldwide, to get situations like NAFTA where USA's corporations and similar get the profits while the neighbors provide the labor, the Banana Wars (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars), Pinochet, the Operation Gladio coups, etc, etc, all to force the globalization which devastates workers in especially but not only Southeast Asia with sweatshops and environmental devastation only have the output shipped worldwide for even more environmental impact, all to maximize profits for USA corporations like Nike, Coka Cola, Kraft, etc,
BUT, this isn't like a common gradual push to restore buying local for union rights, the environment and so on, but is instead shock treatment, bullying and aggression, presented with aid of presumably intentional lies (Singapore's tariffs are AFAIK 0 instead of 10 and EU's around 1 instead of 39).
There is NO time table to build prepared capacity in USA to produce what's now rariffed, so will just shock boost domestic stagflation.

I made a bit of list for you poor folks in USA likely to be hit by Trump's tariffs,
what I would personally prioritize getting in approximate order of necessity when economy dries up or prices gallop away:

rice (both whole grain/brown for fiber and nutrition while also white for ease of use and price)
dried/canned beans and similar (red/green lentils, kidney)
salt (essential for body)
cooking oil (canola)
canned tomatoes (base for many soups/sauces)
pasta (spaghetti, etc, preferably whole grain)
rolled oats (quick food with low own sugar)
low complexity sugar like dried fruits (raisins, date paste, dried apricots), plain sugar or honey
spices (peppers, dried granulated/powdered garlic, etc by taste, for morale)
nut butters (peanut, cashew, etc, quick high energy and protein)
canned/pickled veggies (choose by price and taste, for variety)
flours (if you plan on baking: also dried yeast)
coffee/tea (sometimes a pick-me-up is needed)
soaps (liquid, as generic as possible to enable same being used for body, floors, dishes, laundry)
multivitamins (to attempt compensating for potential lack of fresh veggies and variety) with in particular B12

I am NOT a doctor.
I have, however, gone 6 months on no income, then 6 again just after and had other similar experiences, sooo… I'm sharing my experience.

As economists and journalists I've seen so far have been just unable to find any real basis for Trump's claimed external tariffs being "responded to", mostly describing them with terms like "magic" or "apparently unfounded", here is the first person professionally within the relevant fields I've seen who claims to have a solid explanation for how the numbers were made, either astonishingly incompetently or more likely plain deceptively, from James Surowiecki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Surowiecki).

White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai claims that "No we literally calculated tariffs and non tariff barriers", while in its claims Trump-administration has reclassified EU's VAT (value-added tax) as a non-tariff barrier while that is just not true, VAT isn't a trade barrier but instead an evolved form of what in USA is "sales tax" mess which isn't mentioned in the other direction by Trump and representatives.

The exception seems to be when a place has no/very low trade with USA, so their crazy calculation can't be reasonably applied, they just declare 10% anyway, like e.g. Heard Island and McDonald Islands with population total of 0,
except for Russia which isn't included and they claim it's because Russia is sanctioned so trade is low, but that didn't stop them from putting other places on the list.

Trump's tariffs keep reminding me of two other events when rulers compensated for field-relevant incompetence through increased authoritarianism instead of through decentralization so that those with the relevant competence, those doing the actual things such as farmers, factory workers, etc could with their deep knowledge decide how they should do things.
It reminds me of the "Great Leap Forward" which leaped the people into the "Great Chinese Famine" and it reminds me of the first five-year plan of the "Soviet" Union imposed by Stalin resulting in the Soviet famine which included the Holodomor and similar devastation elsewhere.

Economic analysis on how "Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists", featuring the formula I tooted earlier in this thread
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/trumps-idiotic-and-flawed-tariff-calculations-stun-economists

900 car manufacturer employees in USA "temporarily laid off" due to Trump's tariffs bullshit against the immediate neighbors.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/stellantis-says-will-temporarily-lay-off-900-us-workers-following-tariff-2025-04-03/
Sooo, guess those workers will just have to "temporarily" stop paying rant and eating then?

Guessing there are lots of and will be even more of such mass-layoff cases soon, because MAGA.

─────
“I think it’s going very well,” Trump, asked about the market reaction [to Trump's trade war tariffs], told reporters.

“You’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”

Akayla Gardner
White House Reporter
─────
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2025-04-02/trump-s-tariff-announcement?cursorId=67EED6DCB2240000

Suuure, "buddy". :-D

Meanwhile, in the really real world...
"Here is the latest chart of the S&P500 as of 2pm ET on Thursday:" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/apr/03/donald-trump-tariffs-world-trade-republicans-join-democrats-block-canada-tariffs-us-politics-latest-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-67eeda608f0843b305e4a2fa#block-67eeda608f0843b305e4a2fa)

Trump's tariffshit keeps keeping the markets "boom" going. 😆
"Elon Musk lost $11bn the day after Donald Trump's tariffs [...]
world's 500 richest people lost a combined $208bn [...]"
https://news.sky.com/video/musk-zuckerberg-and-bezos-how-are-the-richest-men-impacted-by-trump-s-tariffs-13342098

Forbes World's Real-time Billionaires [...] Losers
(changes since 5pm EST of prior trading day)
Elon Musk -$15.7B | -4.15% | Tesla, SpaceX
Larry Ellison -$10.8B | -6.24% | Oracle
Warren Buffett -$10.7B | -6.50% | market gambling
Mark Zuckerberg -$9.2B | -4.99% | Facebook, Instagram
Jeff Bezos -$6.7B | -3.44% | Amazon
Jensen Huang -$6.4B | -7.22% | nVidia
Larry Page -$3.9B | -3.07% | Google
Rob Walton & family -$3.8B | -3.60% | Walmart
Jim Walton & family -$3.8B | -3.63% | Walmart
Alice Walton -$3,7 B | -3.83% | Walmart
Thomas Peterffy -$3.7B | -7.56% | market gambling
Sergey Brin -$3.6B | -3.00% | Google
Bernard Arnault & family -$3.6B | -2.28% | opulence brands (France)
Bill Gates -$3.5B | -3.24% | Microsoft

😁👍 :anarchoheart3:

Today:
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC):
"[...] The IFRC is gravely concerned for the ambulance crews of the Palestine Red Crescent who came under heavy gunfire while responding in the early hours of 23 March in the Al-Hashashin area of Rafah. Since then, there has been no communication with the teams. [...]"
https://www.ifrc.org/article/statement-ifrc-calls-access-and-information-fate-nine-missing-palestine-red-crescent-medics

Then:
"Israel admits firing at ambulances in Gaza after Palestinians say rescuers missing in Rafah

Body of team leader found almost a week after six rescuers went missing, Gaza’s civil defence agency says"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/29/israel-admits-firing-at-ambulances-in-gaza-after-palestinians-say-rescuers-missing-in-rafah

Meanwhile, also:
"Israeli army fires at French UNIFIL [UN peacekeepers] patrol near Rmeish in South Lebanon"
https://www.lbcgroup.tv/news/lebanon-news/846277/israeli-army-fires-at-french-unifil-patrol-near-rmeish-in-south-lebano/en?src=rss&utm_source=TheWALL360&utm_medium=Rss-articles&utm_campaign=rss&utm_term=Rss