Have Some Cake

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, loosely translates from the French as “Let them eat cake.” While questionably attributed to Marie Antoinette, the time-honored meaning is that it is a callous and insensitive response from a wealthy person discussing the plight of the poor. It highlights the disconnect between privilege and poverty. Between King Trump and his peons.

Most recently, the billionaire Trump-appointed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick responded to questions about the financial setbacks and losses in the economy and a possible recession, and he assured the interviewer that, “It is worth it.” This parallels billionaire president Donald Trump’s claim that we are in a “period of transition,… that is very big,” and that some economic pain will be worth the possibility of some long-term future gain.

Professional economists have long decried tariffs as nothing more than a regressive tax that does more harm than good. Tariffs are considered a regressive tax because they disproportionately burden lower-income individuals and households because they represent a larger percentage of their income compared to higher-income earners. Shifting the tax burdon away from the wealthy has long been a goal..., of the wealthy.

So, when it comes to the fine tuning of an economy that was very healthy on January 20, 2025, who better than a man who has overseen six bankruptcies, to kill the goose laying the golden eggs? Our Man Trump. Yes, Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times. How you bankrupt a casino is a mystery to most, but Trump managed it three times. The wrecking ball has physically taken down all of Trump’s casinos. He has since moved on and set his sights on the greatest gambling venture of all time, America.

Yes, America and its experiment with democracy was always a gamble. With Trump at the helm, can the wrecking ball be far behind?

Postscript: The folk tale “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs” tells of a farmer who finds his goose lays a golden egg daily. This makes him rich, but his greed leads him to kill the goose, hoping for a large hoard of gold that must be inside the goose, only to find nothing and lose his source of income. Our goose is not yet cooked, but Farmer Trump has hired a madman with a chainsaw and the price of eggs is on the rise. Aesop told this tale in the year 6 BCE.