Lunch Tracker -- Update #1 -- Broken Promises

Here we are -- three and a half weeks into Trump's second term, and wow! Politically, these weeks have been my most difficult and depressing weeks in my entire life. Several of my conservative friends are even trying to cheer me up, as if understanding what I'm going through.

And it's not because I "lost," but because -- well -- the past weeks have been MUCH worse than I had imagined possible. Whatever hope I had held previously that Trump would do the right thing is basically gone. I had thought he would go slow while staying within the confines of the Constitution. But no, rather, he's trying to do EVERYTHING through executive orders and other "quiet" orders through the executive branch, often through individuals who have not been vetted by the Senate. 

Trump has been breaking tens or possibly hundreds of laws passed by Congress and has basically ordered them to stand down with no bellyaching. The judicial branch is kicking in with their checks and balances, but Trump is starting to ignore them as well, and has even threatened them for trying to stop him.

And in short: MANY broken promises. Not the promises Trump had made to his base, but rather the promises made by Congress and previous administrations to millions of Americans and also other countries. Signed contracts that are now being broken. Refugees being stranded. Farms being shut down. Many jobs lost. Promised payments drying up. And ... inflation ticking back up.

So, today I start deducting points. And as I said before, I will only deduct points for things that I had predicted. Today, Trump will lose 4 points total, and each of these fall under the same theme: Broken Promises.

Refugees Not Wanted

"100,000 LEGAL non-citizens are deported in any 12-month period" -- 3 pts. total.

Here, I invite you to read the story of Carlos, who is a Venezuelan man who was invited to come to the US as a refugee, LEGALLY, and who is currently in the process of being deported even though he has no criminal record, nor any evidence that he had done anything wrong. A short summary of this article:

• These Venezuelans came to the US through a Temporary Protected Status, which allows the migrant to stay in the country legally for a couple of years while they work out next moves. (They are considered to be non-citizens.)
• Carlos applied to this program last year using the CBP One mobile app.
• At this stage, ICE claims that they are only deporting criminals at this time.
• Carlos was arrested on Jan. 26, but not his parents.
• There was no warrant.
• The officers claimed that Carlos had appeared in a video with firearms and drugs, but then refused to produce said video.
• Independent researchers have been unable to find any criminal record on Carlos, or the existence of said video.
• Carlos' mom and dad actually supported the idea of deporting Venezuelans who were committing crimes in the US, but were taken by surprise when they came for their son.
• NBC reports that 48 percent of the Venezuelans recently deported did not have any criminal records.
• The parents have no idea when they'll see their son again, and wonder when they'll be next.
• When Karoline Leavitt was asked how many of these deported had criminal records she replied: "All of them, because they illegally broke our nation's laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes."

While it can be shown on a case-by-case basis that nearly half of these deported migrants have no criminal record, I can only interpret Leavitt's statement as referring to them coming into our country "illegally." But that's the thing. These people were INVITED. The United States of America made a promise to them. These refugees went through the legal process. They did everything they were asked. They did NOTHING wrong. They are LEGAL. Trump can't retroactively do take-backsies and suddenly say they came in illegally.

Out of all the items discussed in my update today, this one hurts me the most. If these people are shipped back to Venezuela where hunger and unrest are still rampant, and with an unjust ruler who refuses to abdicate to the rightful winner, we'd be sending these refugees back into the danger zone to be punished, jailed, or even executed. Also, it upsets me that people like Carlos aren't being extended the usual due process. Carlos and his family requested to see the incriminating video, and the officials had refused. Does the video really exist? And I notice that many don't seem to realize, or simply don't want to know, that nearly half of these deportations are not criminals. Many also seem to not be aware of all the other stories of stranded refugees, separated families, and people punished even though they had followed the rules.

1 point deducted.

What Climate Change?

"Pulls us out of climate change agreements" -- 1 point total.

In his first day of office, Trump signed an executive order to pull us out of the Paris Accords. (Section 3-a.) This doesn't go into effect immediately, as first, our ambassador to the UN needs to communicate our intentions to the UN, and then the process could take up a year. But for all intents and purposes, I'm going to consider this a done deal.

Why is this bad? Because climate change is behind most of our recent natural disasters. In the past few years, both frequency and severity in disasters have increased, and there are no signs of stopping in 2025. Among actuaries (insurance companies) there isn't even any debate on whether climate change exists. That's because these companies are paying a LOT of money to cover these disasters, and why your insurance rates are increasing, and why more homes are being dropped from coverage.

Trump has further indicated that there will be no more approved development of wind turbines and solar farms, even though renewables account for 8% of our total primary energy production -- a major contributor to our being net exporters of total primary energy over the past 6 years. Plus, in oil alone, we've broken our own records both in 2023 and 2024 in oil production.

Yet, Trump is using an "Energy Emergency" to bring this all to nonsense to pass. Yeah -- when was the last time you saw an "emergency" in anything where we already had plenty? And Trump thinks he can eek out more production when we're already at a comfortable equilibrium point? Good luck!

Oh -- and fun fact. When it comes to highest CO2 emissions per capita, the US currently ranks 14th at 14.21, while China ranks 24th at 8.89. China may be the heaviest polluter overall, but they got a lot of people. The only countries that rank higher than the US are Canada, Australia, and a collection of Middle East countries. So -- are we doing our part? What Trump is planning to do and NOT do is irresponsible.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Babylon 5: Analyze the problem, choose whichever strategy makes least sense, and then do it.

1 point deducted.

Sorry, Transgender People

"LGBTQ protections are lessened" -- 2 pts. total.

As part of Trump's war on DEI, transgender people have taken an unproportionate hit, with extra genders removed from forms. Also, federal websites have revised ALL references to LGBTQI+ to be simply LGB. (Sometimes, Q still appears.)

All of my LGBTQ+ friends are terrified and worried about what comes next.

In general, this war on DEI has saddened me greatly. What most conservatives don't seem to realize is that DEI is NOT Affirmative Action. And it is NOT hiring an unqualified minority over a more qualified white guy. Rather -- as one friend explained to me, DEI is more about seeking out minorities who are actually MORE qualified than another white guy under consideration.

I see this war on DEI for what it really is. Here's a hint. The Army is deciding to no longer reach out to black schools and events for recruiting. They've done away with Black History celebrations and even -- get this -- Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Don't see it yet? Well -- consider this. While Trump calls for us to consider people's merits and talents, he fired people just for running DEI initiatives, and Trump also called for fellow federal workers to tattle on those who were doing it. These people were fired without ANY REGARD to their MERITS or TALENTS. Imagine the black guy being asked to run a resource group at work. Gone -- even though he had good people and leadership skills. Is it starting to sink in?

And if you still don't see it, perhaps this joke I've created will help. We all know what "DEI Hiring" is supposed to be, but what do you call a "DEI Firing"? Yep -- that's right. Discrimination. And believe me -- those lawsuits are happening right now, and I don't think they're going to lose. Don't believe me? You don't have to -- you can look it up for yourselves when no one is looking.

1 point deducted.

Retribution Time

"Uses presidential power or agencies to go after current or political opponents" -- 3 pts total.

On the most part, Trump has not gone after the big ones (the ones who are supposedly protected by Biden pardons and Romney, who isn't). But Trump has indeed gone after top FBI employees (through the DOJ) who had worked on the cases against him, and has ordered a investigation of up to 1,500 rank and file employees who were assigned to the cases. Though, recently, a top DOJ official has clarified that agents who "simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner" will not be fired -- supposedly. (How are they going to determine which ones were acting "with corrupt or partisan intent"?)

I understand the concern of "they won't be loyal to me" in the higher ranks, but if it becomes more of a personal vendetta, it'll be exactly what I was concerned about. (If it weren't personal, why would he even need to order investigations of the rank-and-file employees?) And should I say it again ... more people fired with regard to their MERITS or TALENTS? Anybody ever wonder what happens when competent people are fired in high places?

1 point deducted.

Other Items -- Negative Outlook

I'm watching Trump in other areas (such as Federal Agencies), but I'm not ready yet to deduct more points just yet. If you think I've missed something, let me know. I'm trying to be purposefully picky, though.

Summary

With 4 points being deducted today, this brings Trump's score to 96. This is still above tolerance, so as per the rules of this experiment, I still owe lunch in 4 years.

Biden -- Looking Back

Biden has finished his term, and now it's time to take a look back. I try to do this with all presidents: a look ahead, and a look back to see how close I got. As a reminder, here is my look-ahead for Biden from four years ago.

(Note: I'm counting my Predictions from last year as Trump's look-ahead.)

Let's see. On Biden ... 

What did I get right?

Biden did live till the end of his term, though he certainly got tired near the end. 

Biden undid a lot of Trump initiatives.

He passed a law that increased taxes on corporations -- a 15% minimum alternative tax.

I believe a watered-down version of Biden's initial environmental program was passed in the ill-named "Inflation Reduction" Act.

Democrats held on to the Senate.

Biden did end up being terrible in uniting people.

What did I get wrong?

Breaking his promise, Biden did run for a second term. 

Biden did not get a law passed that would increase income taxes for individuals earning above $400k -- except for possibly some Trump tax cuts that might have expired. 

He did not reinstitute the individual mandate penalty for Obamacare (kept it at $0).

Democrats did not hold on to the House at midterms.

Independents evidently did not like what Biden had accomplished.

We did not have a recession, technically.

Four years later, we have not yet been unified.

My biggest disappointments

Biden did have his share of big mistakes. He botched the Afghanistan withdrawal. He botched his attempts to unify when he attacked "MAGA Republicans." He failed to win over conservatives, and instead seemed to push more people away.

My biggest disappointment overall was: well -- we just hardly ever saw him. And when we did, he failed to reach people. I know a lot of this was due to his stuttering (something I totally understand, BTW -- when the brain moves faster than the mouth). But also, I think his staff was a little too much protective over his public appearances -- fearing that any goofiness would only give hilarious sound bites and clips out of context to further destroy his credibility. Ironically, not seeing him regularly only increased the image that he was unfit for office.

With Covid, I think Biden missed a golden opportunity -- as I mentioned before: giving Trump credit for the vaccines, and praising his contributions would have convinced a lot more conservatives to get the "Trump" vaccine, which could have helped save at least another 200,000 lives predominantly in red states, counties, and cities.

Biden almost never stood up for himself -- never took credit for some of the conservative policies he helped put into place -- he was just terrible at explaining why things were what they were.

He was way too lenient on immigration until the very last year when he clamped down hard.

I think he should have kept his promise NOT to run for a second term. Though, I think Trump would have won anyway.

My biggest satisfactions

By far, my main reason for voting Biden in 2020 was to get a four-year respite from Trump. (Though, I had thought it would have destroyed his political career, and he would have gone away, but that didn't happen.) Either way, Biden did give us those four years -- a time for healing and rest. It was actually nice to go a whole day without hearing anything or anyone talking about the president. It was like I could live out my life in peace. Well -- kind of -- Trump still wouldn't go away.

I know my conservative friends will disagree with me on this, but I'm a freakin' economist type. Biden did well NOT to disrupt our economic recovery from Covid more than he had to.

To demonstrate what I'm talking about, as early as February 2020, many of us math types had put together models predicting the effects of Covid to the economy and also the resulting recovery. We knew that it would be high inflation and short lived as everyone got back to work. And that's basically what happened.

The Covid recovery packages did seem to have a small and short adverse effect on US inflation, but on the most part, we tracked along with the rest of the richer countries. Ever since mid-2022, our inflation rate has been nearly equal to or less than Europe's. And our GDP overall has fared well in comparison. So while the whole world has been reeling from this recovery period, we've been coming out ahead of others by a small amount, and I believe Biden did help give us a noticeable edge. The alternative GOP narrative of Bidenflation is really a big obfuscation of reality by intentionally ignoring what's going on in other countries in an attempt to try and place all blame on Biden for all of our woes (a tactic that actually enjoyed large returns for the Party -- though what's going to happen when prices don't come down in a year?)

So, what did Biden do? He pretty much stayed out of the way. He didn't pressure the Federal Reserve to raise or lower interest rates, and basically let them do their job independently. He didn't do what Hungary's Orbán did, which was pressuring the federal bank, which then caused 30%+ inflation in his country. (The same thing Trump is trying to do right now.)

Biden also did -- I think -- increase the number of jobs substantially with some of his initiatives. I know he takes credit for 14 million or more new jobs. And yes -- it's very disingenuous, as we all know (liberals and conservatives alike) that the vast majority of those jobs were naturally coming back in the recovery after Covid19. But I will say in his defense: he didn't do anything to slow down that return of new jobs. In contrast, it took Obama nearly his full eight years to get jobs back to what they were after the 2007-8 financial disaster. And yes -- I believe Biden does deserve credit for some of the new jobs on top of the Covid19-returning jobs.

In the area of energy -- yeah -- get ready for this one -- you may be surprised that under Biden, we've actually INCREASED oil production ... breaking records in 2023, and possibly also in 2024. Also, you may not realize that in terms of Total Primary Energy, the US has produced MORE than they have used for the past five or so years -- mainly with the help of fracking/natural gas and an increase in green energy. As such, we've been a net exporter of energy for a few years. If you'd like to learn more, just Google "us total primary energy consumption vs production". 

So, it may come as a surprise to me to hear about an "energy emergency" today, and I totally understand why Biden was trying not to laugh during that section of Trump's inaugural speech. You see -- if production increases too much, prices go down too much, and when producers aren't getting profits, they stop producing -- something we've seen in the past few years already. As a net exporter, we're likely already at a comfortable equilibrium point -- so it'll be interesting to see how this "drill, baby, drill" thing turns out when the producers refuse to "cooperate." But we'll see -- as you can see above, I've been wrong before.

Also -- I was surprised to hear this a couple of days ago, but it turns out that Biden had deported more immigrants than Trump had. Yeah -- part of this was because he said, "Come on in, everyone," but still surprising. You may also be surprised to learn that over 2024, the number of illegal entries and the flow of fentanyl had dropped drastically. Oh -- the GOP knows about this, but they weren't going to alert anyone right before the election. (And Biden/Harris were too dumb to take credit for this in their campaigns.)

And though the GOP wouldn't like to admit it, Biden actually accomplished a lot -- mainly in his first two years when Democrats led both the House and Senate. And during the last two years, which featured the least productive House in decades, Biden was still able to achieve a few more bipartisan surprises -- one that was so successful on immigration that Trump had to order Speaker Johnson to kill it, lest Biden start looking good and accidentally win the presidency again.

Closing Remarks

I suppose I could continue on with my satisfactions, which I feel outweigh my disappointments, but this is enough for now. 

As I've said above, Biden more than satisfied my main reason for voting for him. He stood up to Trump and helped the US to regain some of its strength and confidence back from the rest of the world (who still mostly see our country as bipolar, unpredictable, and unreliable).

Do I feel better off today than I was four years ago? Most definitely, yes -- because in January 2021, I was still locked up at home. 2020 had been the worst year that America had seen in my entire lifetime, the culmination of Trump's incompetence, division, and hate. It was why he lost the election; and then he put us through a bigger hell the last two months of 2020, ending in a violent protest at the Capitol. And only then did he finally relent and allowed the transition to happen.

And finally, this past week has been very difficult for me. I had had some hope that Trump wouldn't turn out so bad, but so far he has only confirmed my worst fears. Just less than one week into this new presidency, I feel a LOT LESS safer than I had a week ago. If Trump's team allows background music glitches to happen (Underwood and Cyrus), what else are they going to allow? He's firing key cybersecurity personnel and replacing them with his own team (the same ones who allowed the 2024 campaign hack? Hopefully not.) He's taking actions that could likely launch us into a larger worldwide conflict. He's made it harder for the US to fight the bird flu breakout that's currently happening in Georgia and other states. He's getting ready to expel refugees who came into our country legally and who were invited. And he's threatening to end federal support of natural disasters while instituting plans that are likely to help increase both severity and frequencies of further disasters.

But it all really hit me as early as right after Trump's inaugural speech, which was very brutal and disheartening -- even going so far as to invoke MLK Jr's name to justify his efforts to do away with anti-discrimination measures, and "manifest destiny" to support ... expansion?

Shortly after the speech, Biden got into his helicopter -- Chopper 46 or whatever they were calling it, and flew away. And I just lost it. It was like seeing the end of an era that may or may not come back. That's when I first realized ...

I already miss Biden.

Lunch Tracker -- the Pre-Update

Hello, and welcome to the Lunch Tracker. If you haven't heard of this yet, check it out, click on the link, or click the "The Lunch Tracker" in the menu at the top of this blog. In a nutshell, I've made a series of predictions as to what Trump will cause to happen during his next four years in office, and I've promised my friends in Alpharetta, GA -- if these don't come to pass, I owe them all a lunch. Will the lunch happen?

Right now the full 100 points are awarded to Trump. Should he cause one of the listed items to happen, I will deduct the pre-determined points (or a portion of them), and as long as his score remains at or above 90 points, I owe lunch.

Every time I deduct points, I will do so with a corresponding Lunch Tracker Update post. And even when it's clear that lunch is not going to happen, I will still continue to deduct points -- because, well -- I worked hard on these predictions, and I'm going to allow myself the indulgence of being right on these. Either way, I'm going to have fun with this. (Unless that one item happens where I personally get punished, or my lunch tracker is censored -- that would just royally suck.)

Also, in this pre-update, I'm adding a new rule: if I feel that my threshold needs to be loosened (that is, I feel that Trump hadn't really turned out to be that bad), then I'll loosen it. For example, I might drop it from 90 to 85. But once I do so, I won't tighten it back.

Another clarification: I haven't deducted any points yet, because -- well, Trump isn't President, yet. He needs to actually be in office, and these items need to come to pass because of his official actions as president, or from any of his appointees acting in his behalf. 

Take for example the item "Pardons self or ends all lawsuits against him." Trump is planning to appeal his felony "hush money" conviction. If he is successful in his appeal, that doesn't count, because it wouldn't be an executive action. If, on the other hand, he says "I'm no longer a felon -- I'm pardoned." Well -- that's an official act, and boom -- 1 point deducted. If Biden pardons Trump in the next few days -- doesn't count. 

Also, there may be several items that are recent concerns that I did NOT predict. For example, I did NOT predict land grabbing. If that happens, it could suck, but since I didn't predict it, I would not deduct any points.

Finally, keep in mind that I will be updating/changing the Tracker as points are deducted. So, to make sure I'm not changing the actual predictions after the fact, I'll copy those predictions at the bottom of this post, which I cannot edit without timestamps being changed. You can likewise feel free to copy/paste these predictions in a safe place to prove to yourselves that I didn't change anything.

But, to be honest, my actuarial opinion is that -- yes -- I'm very likely to NOT provide lunch, but we'll see. My conservative friends keep me around because they know I have an open mind, and if I'm wrong, I will happily accept my wrongness.

I do recognize a hope, which in Trump's "acceptance" speech early the next morning after Election Day, he stated that he was no longer going to "rally" because he isn't running again in four years, and that he was going to instead focus on helping the country. In other words, maybe he'll drop the demeaning nicknames of his opponents and his divisive rhetoric, and with humility actually LEAD our nation to true greatness? I read one article: what if Trump surprises us and acts like a real president and stops all the division, greed, and power-grabbing? If this happens, he has my full support.

Also, there happen to be some drastic agenda items of Trump and his staff I would actually support, such as the end of Daylight Saving Time, or going after high fructose corn syrup and other dangerous food additives. But keep in mind, Trump doesn't get any bonus points for doing things I like. He's starting with 100 points, and they're all his to lose.

But then again, who am I fooling? In the past two months, he's given every indication that he's going to continue doing exactly what he did in the first four years. For starters -- what has he scheduled the night before inauguration? That's right -- another freakin' "rally." Totally breaking his promise of "no more rallies." So, maybe he won't focus on actually helping us after all?

If his reaction to the LA fires is any indication, I'm not holding my breath. If we have another bad pandemic in the next four years, we are all going to be in big trouble. And I'm seeing other leading indicators from just the past two months that suggest I'll be deducting points on at least three other items, but we'll see what actually happens. Maybe when this is all over, I'll be singing Trump's praises.

The predictions locked in time ...

Category	Event	Points	Score	Notes
Retribution	Uses presidential power or agencies to go after current or political opponents	3	3
	Imprisons at least one prominent political opponent critical of Trump	5	5
	Executes at least one political opponent	9	9	These kind of actions would be a serious indicator of the erosion of our Constitution
	I am personally punished for speaking against Trump -- whether thrown into prison or this Tracker is censored	10	10	If something happens to me -- you're just not getting lunch
Military / Posse Comitatus	Federalizes the National Guard and uses them against US civilians (that is, not going through governors)	4	4
	Uses active troops against US civilians	7	7	This is allowed by law, but general goes against key principles behind the Constitution
Inflation	Inflation higher than 10%	3	3
	Inflation higher than 25%	7	7	Inflation is rated higher, as it was a major reason why Trump was elected
Immigration	100,000 people die while being deported in any 12-month period	4	4
	100,000 LEGAL non-citizens are deported in any 12-month period	3	3
	10,000 US citizens are deported	2	2
Media	Punishes at least one media outlet through executive branch (suing doesn't count)	3	3
	Law passes to prohibit speech that is critical of President	5	5	Would be against the First Amendment
Foreign Concerns	Helps give land "peacefully" from the Ukraine to Russia	3	3
	At least two other cases of allowing autocrats to take over democracies	3	3
	Worldwide US share of reserve currency drops below 50%	2	2	An indication of weakness
	Another currency tops the dollar as most used reserve currency	2	2	An indication of weakness
	China and or Russia dominates over the US in power and influence	4	4	An indication of weakness
Social Issues	LGBTQ protections are lessened	2	2
	Gay marriage is no longer federally recognized	5	5	Do we really need more freedoms taken away?
Federal Agencies	Dismantles or lessens the independence of five or more federal agencies	1	1	I will rate some items like this low to cover cases where Trump does this, but we end up being okay
	Destroys the independence of the Federal Reserve	3	3	Will likely be the impetus of higher inflation, which could compound points here
Environment	Pulls us out of climate change agreements	1	1
	Pollution increased due to deregulation	2	2	Some items like this are on the hard side to prove -- so I've rated them low
	Another pandemic is mishandled -- equal to or greater than Covid19	3	3
Third Term	Tries to repeal 22nd Amendment	1	1
	22nd Amendment successfully repealed	1	1
Riches	Collects more than $1B from his followers while in office	1	1	Don't much care about this one -- it's not my money he's taking
Lawsuits	Pardons self or ends all lawsuits against him	1	1
Totals		100	100	I owe lunch