Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Exiled Rebel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410542#Comment_123410542

It's 2025! The cogs of the economy started to turn again 10 years ago. We wasted an opportunity during the tiger years to invest properly in the future and repeated it over the past 10 years.

Last autumn's budget was a disgrace. We knew trump was coming to wreak economic carnage and yet the government of the day went full tonto with a giveaway budget. Annual expenditure has gone from €70bn in 2015 to €120bn in 2025. Of that €50bn increase, €39bn of it was due to an increase in current spending with only an €11bn increase in capital expenditure. In other words we're pissing it away.

...and now that trump has started a trade war with every country on the planet we're likely to see a significant drop in corporation tax receipts ergo missing the boat again.

ixoy

So Trump's blocking more voices that don't slavishly agree with him by withdrawing funding for public broadcasting:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1jwe7582o

And he actually has the nerve to mention journalistic integrity..

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410654#Comment_123410654

My point is the government that promises prudent saving will dip into those savings when to cover their regulation failure, as happened with the Bertie bubble.

feelings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410702#Comment_123410702

Oh right so - we have a pile of cash available, the country gets into a crisis we should say "no no lads, that's our rainy day fund, hands off?"

Who decides when, where, how etc to use those rainy day funds? Our elected officials perhaps? Love or hate them, they have been elected to run the country and use what resources we have on hand.

Governments around the world make promises that are never kept. That doesn't take away from good financial planning.

The wealth fund is a positive step, and yes it should have been done years ago.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410759#Comment_123410759

The reason I mentioned it was that is was the same politicians over two governments that promised it wouldn't be wasted.

how is covering the gambling debts of a minority for the good of the nation?

kneemos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410923#Comment_123410923

They weren't. The banks were bailed out because they were facing massive bad debts.,which they paid back.

feelings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410923#Comment_123410923

Good question, you could argue one way or another that it was right/wrong decision.

In the here and now, the government is in the process of setting up the wealth fund and that is a positive step.

My view is that Ireland should prioritize investing in two of the world's most critical resources, energy and water, rather than placing funds into a sovereign wealth fund. While the returns on such investments may take a decade or more to materialize, the long-term benefits would be transformative for the Island. These investments could secure national stability, energy independence, and sustainable wealth on a scale we've never experienced before.

thereiver

Trump has ordered that all federal funding for pbs and npr national public radio to be ceased .Of course he does not want independent sources of journalism and political discussion to exist that might criticize his government policy's and doges dismantling of federal agencys .

Pbs relys on donations and federal funding to exist

Cbs tv is being sold off they have paused news story's that might be critical of trump until the sake is complete

He prefers tv stations owned by corporations that rely on advertising to exist .

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410983#Comment_123410983

Not all, two are gone.

They were badly run and rewarded for it with the guarantee.

It was the later imf bailout that tackled what the government couldn't.

Penn

Trump apparently wants to rename their public holiday "Veteran's Day" as "Victory Day for World War I" and also introduce a new public holiday called "Victory Day for World War II".

Wonder how the veterans of the Vietnam War would feel about that, given that there are no veterans alive who served in WW1, very few if any who served in WW2, and so the majority of veterans still alive are from the Vietnam War or Iraq/Afghanistan etc.

Maybe he can make a "Victory Day for Vietnam War" holiday. Wouldn't put it past the f*cker to just claim they actually won that one too.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/02/politics/rename-veterans-day-victory-day?utm_medium=social&utm_source=blueskyCNN&utm_content=2025-05-02T11:07:41

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411051#Comment_123411051

Bloody hell. I think Donnie is on a bit of a renaming bender, on account of that being the extent of his imagination when it comes to "improving" anything, or more to the point, having anything attributed to him.

I'm sort of wondering if we're going to get a silly yo-yo effect were a future Dem President will restore the Official US name for the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of Mexico", while future GOP Presidents might find themselves reinstating Donnie's childish retcon names for things.

I wonder if he'll actually manage to rename the "District of Colombia" to "District of America" like he suggested. I fully expect it to be beyond Donnie's gifts to know that "Colombia" is the name of the personification of the Americas, not just the name of a South American nation (who is also named after her).

ElitesTeam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411051#Comment_123411051

Hate Trump so much that cannot see the difference between a WORLD WAR and a localized war that was NOT won. Please read up on your history and stop regurgitating CNN anti Trump nonsense.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411112#Comment_123411112

Veterens Day is intended to honor all US Service Personell. Renaming the days specifically to only 2 conflicts may be seen as a snub of all other US combat veterens who served in the many other conflicts that the US has engaged in since WWII.

As a student of history, I might suggest that that quoted poster is not the person in this case who needs to read up on their history.

8-10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411104#Comment_123411104

It's actually District of Columbia not Colombia

Because it's the female form of Columbus who he's been trying so hard to protect the image of. So another reason why this would be a surprising thing to do

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411152#Comment_123411152

Ah, thanks for the spelling correction.

I hope he won't actually try this rename, but I've a feeling that he might need a lot more than an Executive Order to rename an entire Federal unit like that. Might actually require a vote or something (open to correction on that)

threeball

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123410675#Comment_123410675

I can't think of one decent national infrastructure project in the last decade that wasn't a road. As a country we have no vision or ambition. The electorate don't want it and the politicians don't have it. Worry about the next year and never look to create something better.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411112#Comment_123411112

Trump doesn't like losers, so honoring only those who fought in WWI and WW2 is on par with Trump, because the US won them bigly.

Can't be honoring those losers like McCain, right?

I don't think people have an issue having 2 separate days to celebrate victory in WWI and WW2, but not at the expense of veterans or other wars.

Wonder will they have a victory day to celebrate the war over woke, DEI and trans people?

everlast75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411112#Comment_123411112

A very hostile response.

Can I presume you're a big fan of Trump? If so, I would really like your take on a plethora of scandals. Care to stick around and engage?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411112#Comment_123411112

First of all, the "CNN anti Trump nonsense" is an accounting of Trump's own posts on Truth Social. It was Trump who has put forward the idea of doing this. For reference, Trump's post below;

Secondly, I do know the difference between a WORLD WAR and a localised war that was NOT won. Hence why I said that Trump would probably claim they won that one too (because they did not win it).

Thirdly, as Rawr posted, "Veteran's Day" is a day which over time has come to celebrate all servicemen, past and present, living and deceased. As per my post, if you turn it into just one to commemorate the US' part in the victory of WWI, then another to commemorate the US' part in the victory of WWII, then you are negating the service of US veterans of all other wars, even the ones such as Vietnam where although the US were defeated, those servicemen still earned recognition and honour for serving their country (although obviously the circumstances around the US' involvement in the war to begin with are an entirely different matter).

But yeah, I do hate Trump. He's a c*nt. And your "Wahahh leave Trump alone" post held entirely zero substance.

yagan

I don't even know how Vietnam could be described as a localised war. Maybe they mean it's not far removed enough in time to able to put a victorious spin on it.

aloyisious

Its worth noting that the end of the WWII war in Europe [VE] was celebrated separately to the much later celebration of the end of the WWII war with Japan [VJ] in Sept 1945. Hopefully no one reminds Trump about that victory.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411539#Comment_123411539

If you tried to explain that to Trump with his melted brain, he would troll with Victory over Europe.

yagan

I've seen a few estimates that the volume of containers in west coast ports will be down 35% by the end of next week compared with this time last year. East coast ports expected to record big drops in the week after when the extra sailing time to the east coast is factored in.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411556#Comment_123411556

Explaining to him that his grandfathers side had lost twice after the Yanks got involved might blow his mind.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411593#Comment_123411593

Probably celebrating the signing of the Nazi Soviet Pact would be more in keeping with Trump's current politics… "some very fine people on both sides".

aloyisious

Talking of changes in management positions in Trumps team, Tulsi Gabbard [Trump's D of National Intelligence] has said she will not rule out another run for the presidency again. She ran for it as a Democrat candidate in 2020, the year Trump lost.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411051#Comment_123411051

'Victory Day' is May 9th in Russia. He seems to be taking his cue directly from Putin on this.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411651#Comment_123411651

Well the UK also mark VE Day on May 8th… but yeah, I get the feeling he has Russian type events in mind.

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411670#Comment_123411670

If he wanted to strengthen an EU alternative to NATO then he's going about the right way.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123411575#Comment_123411575

Lots of stories out telling similar stories.

The further knock-on is that the majority of Truck drivers are independent contractors and when there is nothing to deliver, they'll go get other jobs and leave the industry so if/when things pick back up there'll be an automatic shortages of drivers so the supply chain issues will continue far beyond the end of the "Great Tariff Wars of 2025"