Trump’s actions are based on a decent of body of academic work. The formula linking to balance of trade is rational and smart. This is a multi stage plan with short, medium and long term effects and tactics. Sure it’s unorthodox. But orthodoxy was not working. It was driving the world off a cliff.
"The New Confessions by an Econimic Hit Man" by John Perkins details how economists fix the numbers to work out to whatever the agenda dictates. Usually the CIA is involved in directing the agenda, which may be the case with the current fear porn.
I just read the article. The economists seem to base their arguments on the same principles as the Woke Left:
"Unequal outcomes are due to discrimination"
In other words, if there is a trade imbalance between nations, it must be because the nation with the trade surplus is discriminating against the other nation in some unknown way. Therefore, we must enact tariffs to compensate for the discrimination.
This is exactly the reasoning that the Woke uses to enact DEI in hiring, firing, and promotions. The Woke are wrong and so are these economists.
Sometimes nations produce better products or cheaper products, and it has nothing to do with unfair trade practices.
Tariffs are discrimination, just economic rather that social. It's discrimination no matter who is doing it. Other countries tariff U.S. imports and subsidize their own export sectors to bolster production and employment in their own countries. As has been explained, this goes beyond simply placing tariffs on incoming U.S. goods. Other countries promote exports by giving special treatment to their exporters, such as the EU rebating producer VAT taxes on exports. I.e. they discriminate in favor of themselves.
These policies have a dual effect, they disadvantage U.S. exports to our trading partners and disadvantage U.S. producers for the domestic market as imports to the U.S. are quite literally subsidized. Using slave labor, as China does makes matters even worse.
If your goal is to promote domestic production in the U.S., whether you intend to export or not, the current state of affairs is not going to accomplish your goals. Keep in mind that the policies pursued by other countries have the same goal of promoting production in their countries. So why it is a big deal that Trump is finally doing the same for the U.S. is quite confusing to me.
I think it is just people throwing a hissy fit over the fact that the jig is finally up.
I remember back in the early '80s, when Japan was a powerhouse. Japanese executives and government officials were often quoted in financial magazine articles as not understanding our low barriers to foreign imports. They purported to act in their own self-interest, and couldn't understand why we didn't do the same. So they dumped their steel upon us until they wiped out our steel producers.
Trump’s tariffs are FAR higher than any of the average tariffs of our trade partners.
The average tariffs of our trading partners is well under 5% and typically under 1%. If those can be eliminated, that would be great, but they will not have much of a positive impact on the US economy.
You would describe economics as a body of knowledge usually gained by bot education and experience. Those who require a deep economic understanding to excel in life are usually those who excel in the field.
Where did I indicate I cared about that? Economics “experts” are weathermen, sometimes predicting correctly, sometimes not, but never admitting being wrong.
not sure they're included in such an "august body" of academic work, but who was it again that was responsible for advising the US businesses suck up foreign-applied tariffs while the same government was not applying anything even vaguely reciprocal, in the name of post-wwII recovery?
I'm usually willing and able to defend Trump if only because his enemies are so crazed, but whilst it's tempting for people who anticipate an outcome they like to try and reverse engineer a cunning plan out of this, that's neither possible nor intellectually honest.
There is no cunning plan. There is no rational and smart formula here. If these things existed then the announcement wouldn't have made false and incredibly confusing claims about tariffs levied by other countries. The numbers on the poster Trump held up claimed to be a listing of half the tariff charged by other countries, but this is totally wrong and this has confused some Americans into a huge level of surprise: "did anyone know country X was levying such huge tariffs on us?" Well no, because no such tariffs exist.
These numbers come from an entirely different formula that wasn't documented, it had to be guessed. If Trump actually understood what he was talking about and had a plan, he'd have just explained it. There's no reason to see 4D chess here except desperation, given that it's not necessary, and Trump doesn't go in for such games anyway.
The reality here is puddle-deep: for decades Trump has viewed countries selling more than they buy as an unfair deal. Why he believes this is an open question and I have seen little or no analysis of it - it's one area where Eugy could contribute because it's a study of history and there are primary sources - but it's the clear root of today's moves. He's also obsessed with tariffs and thinks they're a magical kind of tax that makes people richer - again, WHY he believes this is the most important question of the moment but nobody is properly digging into where this belief came from.
So "trade imbalance is bad" + "tariffs are good" = "use tariffs to fix trade imbalance". Except this seems to get muddled up in Trump's mind because tariffs are usually retaliatory, and so we have this bizarre narrative in which countries with low tariffs are claimed to have high tariffs and vice-versa.
Only problem is: do we have a sufficiently well educated work force to on-shore our manufacturing; public education is not producing job skill. We must really ramp up blue collar job skills to enable the return of manufacturing. I hope so.
Watch this video from two leading conservative economists and tell me what sound economics are behind this. It's pure populist protectionism. It doesn't work and will quite possibly destroy our economy.
So two establishment suits pronounce a fatwa on Trump for the heresy of challenging their cosy consensus that’s been bankrupting America for 30 years. Cool!
Hah! Everyone’s an economist now! And that can only be a good-ish thing, since most people never seemed to give one hoot about how the big boys in the back rooms have been rigging the system for nigh unto 80 years.
The Chief thing Trump’s tariff offensive will bring into sharp relief is the utter and almost incalculable fakery that has been baked into the US and other nations economies for decades.
What’s that saying, “the Truth hurts” - at first.
But it also heralds a new beginning upon which to build a more honest footing.
So don’t panic because the alternatives are even more frightening. Pray much and buckle up.
I haven't seen it, but was told of a woman that was bemoaning the fact that a US paper mill had to start up because of tariffs on the type of paper it used to produce. There are some who just can't understand.....anything.
No, there are much better alternatives that do not involve tariffs. And if we do that, we can avoid that short-term pain that keeps Democrats in a minority in the federal government. Tariffs will do the opposite.
I am very glad that Trump is implementing a portion of my proposed reform agenda, but tariffs threaten to eliminate all that progress by bringing the Left roaring back.
1. Military conflicts elsewhere aside, the USA is at war with Davos/Brussels/City of London. Almost everything we are seeing from the Trump administration is aimed at bolstering our defensive position in this economic battle space, and weakening the Globalist bankers who really run the world.
2. The tariff move is not only long overdue, but most importantly cannot be viewed in isolation of these other moves Trump is making in his Herculean attempt to not only pull the US financial system out of the fire, but weaken the elements abroad that put America in such dire straits to begin with.
3. The tariff blowback is going to look like child's play in a few months when the EU makes its big move. Ursula and Christine have already told us what is coming: first, capital controls, locking the euro inside the Continent; next, a "bail in" of customer funds held in banks to fund the new war footing (Ursula called it "mobilizing unused savings" (!)), and finally putting all Europeans under the CBDC regime that Christine just announced is coming this October.
What we are seeing is not carnage. That's just around the corner. And wait until the Bank of England collapses.
I understand what you're saying, but those of us who have managed to save (not yet a million) over the years with never more than $80k gross income, this will hurt us. I'm willing to wait it out and trust Trump knows what he's doing, but if the market doesn't eventually come back, we little guys are screwed.
Sorry, but most retirees have a large percentage of their life savings in stocks. And these tariffs look like they are keeping the Canadian Liberal party in power.
Hard to say. You have to understand CDN media is ALL in on Carney and keeping the govt media funding in place. Its a Harris style psyop to prop up a fake suit. Main st Canada is so screwed that the RCMP issued a report warning of unrest when we find out how poor we are.
What is also happening is the socialists (NDP) have a DEI WEF leader who imploded and his voting block is going red to keep Conservatives out of power. It's a bit fishy.
A well-diversified investment portfolio includes a significant investment in stocks. Taking pleasure at the economic suffering of others is not what we should be aiming for.
Individually maybe. But this will absolutely wreck a lot of pension funds, particularly state/city/university that are overcommitted anyway for political “promise the sky” reasons and are based on pretty… hopeful projections in re: annual market gains.
If you were cynical about it you might say those are all democrats anyway, and screw the bureaucrats and professors (DISAWOW!!!!! 😂) but that's still a lot of consumer confidence evaporating.
They come up again when the risk becomes mitigated or better understood to not be so bad. E.g. systemic confidence in the GFC came back when the US and EU made clear that they wouldn’t allow more Lehmans. Think it would have magically come back if that hadn’t happened, just because a day or two passed?
This “dip” (totally not a rational reaction to supply chain costs suddenly going up 10-70(?!)% and volatility just exploding through the roof since others will react, and nobody knows how just yet, just a dip due to animal spirits or whatever) will end when the risk is mitigated (i.e. the whole stupid thing is replaced).
Or it will end nominally when ZIRP (or even NIRP) comes back. GLHF with that. Reading recommendation: The Mandibles (Shriver).
One issue is agriculture. Here you have infinite tariffs with excuses like biosecurity (not for the EU but Australia/NZ are serious offenders on this front.) For the EU it is pure protectionism and a political hot potato.
And it is a figleaf to address such issues with tariffs.
The only honest way to deal with 'standards etc.' is to prohibit an import. And to prohibit the import of the same or another product by that exporting country.
My guess is those will only be increased in this tariff war. Meanwhile the American economy could easily slide into recession, guaranteeing the Democrats win in 2026 and 2028.
How about China, no tariffs from them either? The whole reason Clinton let China into the WTO was to open their market to us. Instead trillions of wealth and nearly our entire industrial base went to China.
The current fat **** premier of Ontario claimed that Canada would zero all tariffs if Trump did the same (on CNBC I think)
He's a LIAR and he knows IT! We will never EVER reduce our insane dairy tariffs that protect Quebec wealthy diary farmers who screw us all with their protected market.
Canadian government could offer the Quebec dairy industry DIRECT price supports. It would likely take some finessing with trade pacts, but it's possible. Would allow countervailing tariffs between the two countries to wind down to zero. The trade deficit (on which Trump's tariffs levels are based)would, however, likely remain as an issue to be worked on by both countries.
First, Trump is extremely sensitive to names. What things (and people) are called is important to a master marketer. I'm still a little surprised Trump II (the man's administration) has bobbled the marketing on this latest MAGA plan.
Second, the Canadian government could (rightfully) claim that they saved the dairy industry from immediate and permanent destruction. With a graduated price support system (say, over the next 5 years), the industry could be modernized and rationalized to stand on its own, and Trump II could claim credit for dealing with a long-term trade irritant. Win-win, Trump's second favorite outcome (the first is left as an exercise for the reader...viz. Conan the Barbarian).
The EU has been tariffing everybody else for years. Imposing them on the UK was one of their threats against the UK to try to stop us leaving - I'm not sure why they would genuinely remove tariffs now?
Typical tariff levels of our biggest trading partners is well under 5%. Not ideal, but far better than what Trump is proposing and likely will get out of this.
So it sounds like you actually are in favor of "free trade" after all , in agreement with so-called "regime economists."
If you believe that driving our trading partners' tariffs from well under 5% to zero, then you are taking a huge risk with the material well-being of the American people (and the rest of the world).
Why risk it?
The enemy of the good is the quest for perfection.
The only good ending is that Trump rapidly repeals his tariffs.
The tariffs come on, raise, lower, go away so often it must be an accounting nightmare. Plus an added benefit is it drives liberals mad and the media takes their eye off the DOGE bomb for a short while until the next move.
Yesterday I called my family in Belgium. A 30 minute rant about how 'your nutcase' is wrecking the world. As if it was not wrecked yet. There was even mentioned how in the 30s children had to be named German names!!! never heard of that, and when checking the lists of names of the 30s, no evidence found. May be just another trump from years ago LOL.
He will ruin us all and he will ruin you! When I tell them I am carefully convincing people here, that indeed, Trump is not 'the savior' I get warned not to post anything against him because I probably will end up in prison. Obviously they realize indeed, that freedom of speech (especially in Europe) is a thing of the past.
I think trying anything different from what it was is better than continuing the downward spiral, even if for a few months, things will be though. Will we be able to buy cognac in the next few months? I don't know. I probably will have to get used to American Whiskey... blah !
My hot take: it’s been 3 business days, THREE! How about everyone calms the F’ down and waits to see what happens? Chicken Little was calmer than the MSM is right now. 🤦🏻♂️
That's what makes me do the opposite: Not panic. Because these people shriek about everything. They're the boy who cried wolf. Then again, if something serious DOES happen, we'll be ignoring them - lol.
There is a cute video going around France that we should all drink 20% more wine/cognac/champagne "for the fatherland" to absorb the impact of reduced exports to the US.
With less global trade, there's fewer emissions, and with less consumption there's less garbage and less energy-expenditure on extraction of raw materials and production.
Shouldn't all the politicos and corpos and whorenalists be rejoicing?
Seriously. We're helpless to do anything about it while the PTB run the show. May as well get out the popcorn and a soda and have a laugh. While we can.
The US economy will recover after if we stop importing goods from China, we will get them elsewhere. Will China’s economy recover with zero exports to the US? No, it will crash.
China has little to no leverage here. The US market is very lucrative, other countries should have to pay for access to the US market.
I humbly suggest China has bought quite a lot of funny bonds from the USA. Removal of China will be amusing, just ahead of the financial collapse. Oh - and the rest of the world will get some pain as well. Great plan.
Japan owns a lot more of the US debt (1.1 trillion last year) than does China. I think it's something like 22% of the US national debt that is owned by foreign nations, mainly US Treasury bonds as such.
By memory, about half the US national debt has been owned by central banks historically, and the rest by independent investors and private companies, but my numbers are likely outdated to some degree.
Sweden was in a similar spot in the early 1990s, with a huge national debt. It took a couple of lean years to sort it out and pay it down to manageable levels; I think that's Trump's goal, to prevent the US to go into default and the inevitable "let's print money to get out of debt"-shenanigans likely to result from it.
I do think this is a race against time, where a 'run' is engineered to execute disaster. Smaller economies like the UK sit fully immersed in the water, barely afloat. Our Glorious Dear Leader Starmer just does not see the urgency.....
If UK is a smaller economy, then what about my nation?
2.9T USD vs 0.5T USD
On the other hand, we're a) not an island and b) our population is ca 10.5 million rather than 68 million.
Am I assuming correctly that domestic production of food is a hot topic in the UK at present? It is here, what with us only being self-sufficient on carrots and sugar-beets at present...
I don't know what to make of this. I can hardly balance my checkbook.
I'm not checking my 401K. I'm avoiding the televised hand-wringing.
I guess I'm in the camp of DO SOMETHING. TRY ANYTHING.
For four years, Americans have had a senile Leader of the Free World, a giggling total wingnut who's a heartbeat away from him, a Congress of blatant liars, and a collection of media hacks.
Trump LOVES being the center of attention and thrives in an environment of chaos--b/c it gives the world a terrible case of indigestion.
If you like "Let's buy Greenland," you're going to LOVE "Tariff everything!"
My 'Hot Take' as the hip young people would say is the top 1% own 85% of the stock market. The top 10% like 98%. The bottom 50% own 0%. So this whole "OMGGGG The Stock Market is CRASHINGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in the media is a reflection of the views of the top 1% and not the majority.
The irony here is the top 1% is largely a house of cards and all the "profits" they've earned recently during the pandemic where their wealth went up like 40% and the bottom 50% went up 4%..... Additionally, for decades before that, the top 1% made money by shipping jobs overseas and decimating American manufacturing. So its natural, they won't make the same insane levels of profit if they are paying American workers, American wages and quite frankly, the average bottom 50% American is okay with that. They'd love to be able to work a factory job and make $50/hr and on one salary, own a house and support a wife and two kids; like the boomers had in the 60-70s.
The bottom 50% doesn't care much if the lose 4% of their net worth if it evens the playing field and billionaires are brought down a peg and lose that unearned 40% bullshit-covid-policy profit where they literally had the government shut down their small businesses. They only care if they still believe in CNN, MSNBC and the media. The giant tanking of democratic support in the polls, even among democrats, suggest even that narrative of the bought-n-sold-for party is starting to wane. Nobody believes the narrative of oppression like they used to. They are all starting to think about individual accomplishments and their own friends/local tribe. Not group identities as much.
Trump’s actions are based on a decent of body of academic work. The formula linking to balance of trade is rational and smart. This is a multi stage plan with short, medium and long term effects and tactics. Sure it’s unorthodox. But orthodoxy was not working. It was driving the world off a cliff.
Here’s a good explainer which further expands on each of the points Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant made in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson.
https://open.substack.com/pub/amuseonx/p/the-great-interest-reset-trumps-strategy
Brilliant.
Add to my list before:
13. Bring investment ($) into the US. That reduces interest rates on US Fed Govt debt.
'a decent of body of academic work'
You mean in economics, commonly known as 'the dismal science'?
Hi Tard!
"The New Confessions by an Econimic Hit Man" by John Perkins details how economists fix the numbers to work out to whatever the agenda dictates. Usually the CIA is involved in directing the agenda, which may be the case with the current fear porn.
Old joke.
A mathematician, an economist and a statistician are asked “what is 2+2”?
Mathematician says 4
Economist says it’s somewhere between 3 and 5
Statistician says “what do you want it to be”?
Think Piketty
Then think of Modern Monetary Theory, which isn’t a theory, it’s an alibi for leftists who just want to borrow and spend with abandon.
Like our Trudeau Liberals who have run up more debt and then some in 9.5 years than all govts since confederation in 1867 put together.
Borrowing and setting on fire becomes “investments”.
Same as hiring unneeded civil servants with borrowed money is not job creation, it’s a structural deficit.
Always watch for bastardization of language.
Yup: https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/balanced-trade
I just read the article. The economists seem to base their arguments on the same principles as the Woke Left:
"Unequal outcomes are due to discrimination"
In other words, if there is a trade imbalance between nations, it must be because the nation with the trade surplus is discriminating against the other nation in some unknown way. Therefore, we must enact tariffs to compensate for the discrimination.
This is exactly the reasoning that the Woke uses to enact DEI in hiring, firing, and promotions. The Woke are wrong and so are these economists.
Sometimes nations produce better products or cheaper products, and it has nothing to do with unfair trade practices.
Tariffs are discrimination, just economic rather that social. It's discrimination no matter who is doing it. Other countries tariff U.S. imports and subsidize their own export sectors to bolster production and employment in their own countries. As has been explained, this goes beyond simply placing tariffs on incoming U.S. goods. Other countries promote exports by giving special treatment to their exporters, such as the EU rebating producer VAT taxes on exports. I.e. they discriminate in favor of themselves.
These policies have a dual effect, they disadvantage U.S. exports to our trading partners and disadvantage U.S. producers for the domestic market as imports to the U.S. are quite literally subsidized. Using slave labor, as China does makes matters even worse.
If your goal is to promote domestic production in the U.S., whether you intend to export or not, the current state of affairs is not going to accomplish your goals. Keep in mind that the policies pursued by other countries have the same goal of promoting production in their countries. So why it is a big deal that Trump is finally doing the same for the U.S. is quite confusing to me.
I think it is just people throwing a hissy fit over the fact that the jig is finally up.
I remember back in the early '80s, when Japan was a powerhouse. Japanese executives and government officials were often quoted in financial magazine articles as not understanding our low barriers to foreign imports. They purported to act in their own self-interest, and couldn't understand why we didn't do the same. So they dumped their steel upon us until they wiped out our steel producers.
Trump’s tariffs are FAR higher than any of the average tariffs of our trade partners.
The average tariffs of our trading partners is well under 5% and typically under 1%. If those can be eliminated, that would be great, but they will not have much of a positive impact on the US economy.
It is certainly not worth a recession.
Despite the existence of VAT taxes across the pond then, the tariffs inequality has no effect on equal trade, for example.
It's correcting 'DEI'.
You do know that Ricardian Comparative Trade Theory only applies when both capital and labor are not mobile, right?
No, you correct DEI by eliminating it directly.
The tariff levels have no impact on DEI whatsoever.
You do not need to be a Ricardian economist to know that tariffs are bad.
I came here to laugh at you.
Can you link to this "decent of body of academic work" who is in favor of 20-40% tariffs?
I don't think there are many...
Economics is to science as phrenology is to science.
even head bumps are more predictive of real world outcomes than fiat economics...
It appears our trade policies are being created by head bumps.
This is just a cope in refusing to admit that anyone who knows anything about tariffs and trade know that they do great damage.
Or trepanation?
You would describe economics as a body of knowledge usually gained by bot education and experience. Those who require a deep economic understanding to excel in life are usually those who excel in the field.
So then why should we care about "a decent of body of academic work?"
Where did I indicate I cared about that? Economics “experts” are weathermen, sometimes predicting correctly, sometimes not, but never admitting being wrong.
not sure they're included in such an "august body" of academic work, but who was it again that was responsible for advising the US businesses suck up foreign-applied tariffs while the same government was not applying anything even vaguely reciprocal, in the name of post-wwII recovery?
Yes, correct. And yet many countries use them against us. Why would they employ tariffs if tariffs are bad for them?
Indeed there are not many, which is why it is an UNorthodox view rather than the orthodox view.
Start with Bessant’s interview with Tucker.
Links?
And an interview with Tucker is not " a decent of body of academic work."
Oh sorry I thought you might actually be genuine in wanting to understand. Clearly you just want to try to score points.
Read Tree of Woe's post. He covers it in greater detail. Remember, if you're not well read, it's not our problem.
So how is "not many" the same as " a decent body of academic work."
You are being very dishonest.
You’re being obtuse. Go grab a dictionary.
I am simply because they can be negotiated to bring 2 nations to the table, and a deal that satisfies both.
I'm usually willing and able to defend Trump if only because his enemies are so crazed, but whilst it's tempting for people who anticipate an outcome they like to try and reverse engineer a cunning plan out of this, that's neither possible nor intellectually honest.
There is no cunning plan. There is no rational and smart formula here. If these things existed then the announcement wouldn't have made false and incredibly confusing claims about tariffs levied by other countries. The numbers on the poster Trump held up claimed to be a listing of half the tariff charged by other countries, but this is totally wrong and this has confused some Americans into a huge level of surprise: "did anyone know country X was levying such huge tariffs on us?" Well no, because no such tariffs exist.
These numbers come from an entirely different formula that wasn't documented, it had to be guessed. If Trump actually understood what he was talking about and had a plan, he'd have just explained it. There's no reason to see 4D chess here except desperation, given that it's not necessary, and Trump doesn't go in for such games anyway.
The reality here is puddle-deep: for decades Trump has viewed countries selling more than they buy as an unfair deal. Why he believes this is an open question and I have seen little or no analysis of it - it's one area where Eugy could contribute because it's a study of history and there are primary sources - but it's the clear root of today's moves. He's also obsessed with tariffs and thinks they're a magical kind of tax that makes people richer - again, WHY he believes this is the most important question of the moment but nobody is properly digging into where this belief came from.
So "trade imbalance is bad" + "tariffs are good" = "use tariffs to fix trade imbalance". Except this seems to get muddled up in Trump's mind because tariffs are usually retaliatory, and so we have this bizarre narrative in which countries with low tariffs are claimed to have high tariffs and vice-versa.
Not correct. There is a plan and it would have been not just reckless and stupid but illegal to disclose it in advance.
Please substantiate any of those claims.
Please do your own research.
"Trump’s actions are based on a decent of body of academic work. "
Ha, ha! Oh, you were serious...
Only problem is: do we have a sufficiently well educated work force to on-shore our manufacturing; public education is not producing job skill. We must really ramp up blue collar job skills to enable the return of manufacturing. I hope so.
Watch this video from two leading conservative economists and tell me what sound economics are behind this. It's pure populist protectionism. It doesn't work and will quite possibly destroy our economy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auwx-VobZBk
So two establishment suits pronounce a fatwa on Trump for the heresy of challenging their cosy consensus that’s been bankrupting America for 30 years. Cool!
The Milton Friedman episode was in the 70s.
The bankrupting of America started under Paul Volker in the 80s - that's what created the rust belt. Monetary policy has played a major part.
Hah! Everyone’s an economist now! And that can only be a good-ish thing, since most people never seemed to give one hoot about how the big boys in the back rooms have been rigging the system for nigh unto 80 years.
The Chief thing Trump’s tariff offensive will bring into sharp relief is the utter and almost incalculable fakery that has been baked into the US and other nations economies for decades.
What’s that saying, “the Truth hurts” - at first.
But it also heralds a new beginning upon which to build a more honest footing.
So don’t panic because the alternatives are even more frightening. Pray much and buckle up.
And learn to garden and grab some laying hens. I'll be storing up some wine as well.✌🏼☦️
I haven't seen it, but was told of a woman that was bemoaning the fact that a US paper mill had to start up because of tariffs on the type of paper it used to produce. There are some who just can't understand.....anything.
No, there are much better alternatives that do not involve tariffs. And if we do that, we can avoid that short-term pain that keeps Democrats in a minority in the federal government. Tariffs will do the opposite.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/priorities-for-the-second-trump-administration
Well, the people in charge for the past 40 years could have used any of these.
Nobody did anything... until now.
As someone else posted, Man tager hvad man hafver = You use what you have.
What is your point?
I am very glad that Trump is implementing a portion of my proposed reform agenda, but tariffs threaten to eliminate all that progress by bringing the Left roaring back.
Don't forget that you can't go wrong doing the opposite of whatever Cramer is currently screaming about on CNBC
For 30+ years
1. Military conflicts elsewhere aside, the USA is at war with Davos/Brussels/City of London. Almost everything we are seeing from the Trump administration is aimed at bolstering our defensive position in this economic battle space, and weakening the Globalist bankers who really run the world.
2. The tariff move is not only long overdue, but most importantly cannot be viewed in isolation of these other moves Trump is making in his Herculean attempt to not only pull the US financial system out of the fire, but weaken the elements abroad that put America in such dire straits to begin with.
3. The tariff blowback is going to look like child's play in a few months when the EU makes its big move. Ursula and Christine have already told us what is coming: first, capital controls, locking the euro inside the Continent; next, a "bail in" of customer funds held in banks to fund the new war footing (Ursula called it "mobilizing unused savings" (!)), and finally putting all Europeans under the CBDC regime that Christine just announced is coming this October.
What we are seeing is not carnage. That's just around the corner. And wait until the Bank of England collapses.
I fear you are correct. Still, we do have the utterly spineless Rodney K Starmer at the helm. By the way, which way is 'East'?
Finally, a excellent comment.
Trust the Plan - Q
"Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face"
- Mike Tyson
And in this case it’s the EU getting punched in the face.
No, it is the American people who are getting punched in the face.
No, they are not, you hysterical man. Take a deep breath and talk to us in two weeks time.
How many friends do you have which are not part of the professional or owning class?
And deal with the pain. This too shall pass.
Given that the stock market is the playground for the globalists, let them SUFFER.
The top10% own 90% of all stocks! Its a racket where the house always wins, until now!
I understand what you're saying, but those of us who have managed to save (not yet a million) over the years with never more than $80k gross income, this will hurt us. I'm willing to wait it out and trust Trump knows what he's doing, but if the market doesn't eventually come back, we little guys are screwed.
Wait a few weeks. You will be fine. The market is just throwing a hissy fit because Orange Man broke their precious rules.
Bullshit.
Americans of all economic classes want a growing economy. The idea that investors are just doing this for ideology is ridiculous.
My guess is that majority of them voted for Trump.
Wake up!
The markets are all juiced up and way way too high.
What is happening is the money is going into the 10yr treasury (reducing yields). Mortgage rates down
Oil prices down
Inflation down
It's about time main street got some love. The western world is far too financialized. Producing what exactly?
Cmon. We produce lots of exported fiat and inflate it around the world .
Sorry, but most retirees have a large percentage of their life savings in stocks. And these tariffs look like they are keeping the Canadian Liberal party in power.
Hard to say. You have to understand CDN media is ALL in on Carney and keeping the govt media funding in place. Its a Harris style psyop to prop up a fake suit. Main st Canada is so screwed that the RCMP issued a report warning of unrest when we find out how poor we are.
What is also happening is the socialists (NDP) have a DEI WEF leader who imploded and his voting block is going red to keep Conservatives out of power. It's a bit fishy.
And Trumps' tariffs have nothing to do with it?
Please...
10 years of zero economic growth? That’s not from big orange. Nor is our falling in the world’s happiness index.
Retirees who don't understand diversifying shouldn't be in the "market".
A well-diversified investment portfolio includes a significant investment in stocks. Taking pleasure at the economic suffering of others is not what we should be aiming for.
please. read some history. the market goes up the market goes down. you're beginning to sound like a wall street shill.
The top 10% are mostly retirement funds.
Individually maybe. But this will absolutely wreck a lot of pension funds, particularly state/city/university that are overcommitted anyway for political “promise the sky” reasons and are based on pretty… hopeful projections in re: annual market gains.
If you were cynical about it you might say those are all democrats anyway, and screw the bureaucrats and professors (DISAWOW!!!!! 😂) but that's still a lot of consumer confidence evaporating.
Also it's not only those pension plans.
It will wreck pension plans because no dip in the Dow ever came back up again. Take a look at a 2 year chart. This is a storm in a teacup.
They come up again when the risk becomes mitigated or better understood to not be so bad. E.g. systemic confidence in the GFC came back when the US and EU made clear that they wouldn’t allow more Lehmans. Think it would have magically come back if that hadn’t happened, just because a day or two passed?
This “dip” (totally not a rational reaction to supply chain costs suddenly going up 10-70(?!)% and volatility just exploding through the roof since others will react, and nobody knows how just yet, just a dip due to animal spirits or whatever) will end when the risk is mitigated (i.e. the whole stupid thing is replaced).
Or it will end nominally when ZIRP (or even NIRP) comes back. GLHF with that. Reading recommendation: The Mandibles (Shriver).
If it is a "storm in a teacup," then why do you favor it?
Are you a Democratic operative?
I think he is being facetious…
That is the same nihilistic and vengeful bullshit of the Woke Left.
A lower stock market hurts everyone. The fact that it hurts some people you do not like more does not make it a good thing.
No to tariffs. Period. By any country. If the EU & US can actually pull this off, this would be fantastic.
One issue is agriculture. Here you have infinite tariffs with excuses like biosecurity (not for the EU but Australia/NZ are serious offenders on this front.) For the EU it is pure protectionism and a political hot potato.
Agriculture is definitely a hot potato and probably everywhere. If it's not a protectionist tariff, it's a gov't subsidy or something.
The US needs to dump it's corn subsidy that mostly goes to Cargill, Heinz, Tyson etc. Not helping main st and fattening us all.
And it is a figleaf to address such issues with tariffs.
The only honest way to deal with 'standards etc.' is to prohibit an import. And to prohibit the import of the same or another product by that exporting country.
My guess is those will only be increased in this tariff war. Meanwhile the American economy could easily slide into recession, guaranteeing the Democrats win in 2026 and 2028.
How about China, no tariffs from them either? The whole reason Clinton let China into the WTO was to open their market to us. Instead trillions of wealth and nearly our entire industrial base went to China.
The current fat **** premier of Ontario claimed that Canada would zero all tariffs if Trump did the same (on CNBC I think)
He's a LIAR and he knows IT! We will never EVER reduce our insane dairy tariffs that protect Quebec wealthy diary farmers who screw us all with their protected market.
Canadian government could offer the Quebec dairy industry DIRECT price supports. It would likely take some finessing with trade pacts, but it's possible. Would allow countervailing tariffs between the two countries to wind down to zero. The trade deficit (on which Trump's tariffs levels are based)would, however, likely remain as an issue to be worked on by both countries.
Direct price supports are exactly the kind of thing that Trump is focused on.
Tariffs in all but name. New Zealand had a similar market to Canada. Once they ditched it they are now a world leader in dairy and diary products.
We prop up the lazy dairy farmers and stifle quality and innovation. IE very Canadian.
Two points:
First, Trump is extremely sensitive to names. What things (and people) are called is important to a master marketer. I'm still a little surprised Trump II (the man's administration) has bobbled the marketing on this latest MAGA plan.
Second, the Canadian government could (rightfully) claim that they saved the dairy industry from immediate and permanent destruction. With a graduated price support system (say, over the next 5 years), the industry could be modernized and rationalized to stand on its own, and Trump II could claim credit for dealing with a long-term trade irritant. Win-win, Trump's second favorite outcome (the first is left as an exercise for the reader...viz. Conan the Barbarian).
Umm...
The EU has been tariffing everybody else for years. Imposing them on the UK was one of their threats against the UK to try to stop us leaving - I'm not sure why they would genuinely remove tariffs now?
Good in theory but it would decimate the car industry on both continents Chinese cars are not just better but way cheaper
Better? You get what you pay for. Chinese EVs are down right dangerous.
Typical tariff levels of our biggest trading partners is well under 5%. Not ideal, but far better than what Trump is proposing and likely will get out of this.
I've read a list of Canada's various tariffs against US products. What in the world are you talking about?
Look up the average tariff rate for Canada on American goods...
The tariffs are almost always zero percent.
Non tariff barriers are the killer.
Canada's explicit tariffs are fairly low, their non tariff barriers very high.
For whose benefit?
It would be awesome and that is one possible good outcome. There are multiple good endings to this.
So it sounds like you actually are in favor of "free trade" after all , in agreement with so-called "regime economists."
If you believe that driving our trading partners' tariffs from well under 5% to zero, then you are taking a huge risk with the material well-being of the American people (and the rest of the world).
Why risk it?
The enemy of the good is the quest for perfection.
The only good ending is that Trump rapidly repeals his tariffs.
None of the regime economists are actual free traders except when they’re having a hissy fit at Trump.
You change your opinion in the span of 5 minutes more than just about anyone I have ever seen.
Now the "regime economists" are not actual free traders...........
The tariffs come on, raise, lower, go away so often it must be an accounting nightmare. Plus an added benefit is it drives liberals mad and the media takes their eye off the DOGE bomb for a short while until the next move.
Yesterday I called my family in Belgium. A 30 minute rant about how 'your nutcase' is wrecking the world. As if it was not wrecked yet. There was even mentioned how in the 30s children had to be named German names!!! never heard of that, and when checking the lists of names of the 30s, no evidence found. May be just another trump from years ago LOL.
He will ruin us all and he will ruin you! When I tell them I am carefully convincing people here, that indeed, Trump is not 'the savior' I get warned not to post anything against him because I probably will end up in prison. Obviously they realize indeed, that freedom of speech (especially in Europe) is a thing of the past.
I think trying anything different from what it was is better than continuing the downward spiral, even if for a few months, things will be though. Will we be able to buy cognac in the next few months? I don't know. I probably will have to get used to American Whiskey... blah !
My hot take: it’s been 3 business days, THREE! How about everyone calms the F’ down and waits to see what happens? Chicken Little was calmer than the MSM is right now. 🤦🏻♂️
panic porn is their product and raison d'etre
permanent hysteria is good for business
All of the Cassandras with public platforms are weeping, wailing, and gnashing their teeth. It's what they do best, following their unwritten credo:
"When in danger or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout."
As usual (to quote the Immortal Bard), " 'Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
That's what makes me do the opposite: Not panic. Because these people shriek about everything. They're the boy who cried wolf. Then again, if something serious DOES happen, we'll be ignoring them - lol.
There is a cute video going around France that we should all drink 20% more wine/cognac/champagne "for the fatherland" to absorb the impact of reduced exports to the US.
My son who lives in the greater Munich area said that during rush hour, he is seeing more men on the train drinking beer. That used to be very rare.
More empty bottles left on the platforms too.
That's interesting, because I keep hearing about how alcohol consumption and social drinking are way down in the US
There's a good thesis for somebody in determining the correlation between socialism and alcohol consumption.
But what about the climate!?
With less global trade, there's fewer emissions, and with less consumption there's less garbage and less energy-expenditure on extraction of raw materials and production.
Shouldn't all the politicos and corpos and whorenalists be rejoicing?
I am just here to simply enjoy the mayhem.
Give me excitement. Entertain me.
Seriously. We're helpless to do anything about it while the PTB run the show. May as well get out the popcorn and a soda and have a laugh. While we can.
Exactly. People panic and go nuts over everything.
Just make some peace with the world and your short life on it, and do be enjoying the ride!
The US economy will recover after if we stop importing goods from China, we will get them elsewhere. Will China’s economy recover with zero exports to the US? No, it will crash.
China has little to no leverage here. The US market is very lucrative, other countries should have to pay for access to the US market.
I humbly suggest China has bought quite a lot of funny bonds from the USA. Removal of China will be amusing, just ahead of the financial collapse. Oh - and the rest of the world will get some pain as well. Great plan.
Japan owns a lot more of the US debt (1.1 trillion last year) than does China. I think it's something like 22% of the US national debt that is owned by foreign nations, mainly US Treasury bonds as such.
By memory, about half the US national debt has been owned by central banks historically, and the rest by independent investors and private companies, but my numbers are likely outdated to some degree.
Sweden was in a similar spot in the early 1990s, with a huge national debt. It took a couple of lean years to sort it out and pay it down to manageable levels; I think that's Trump's goal, to prevent the US to go into default and the inevitable "let's print money to get out of debt"-shenanigans likely to result from it.
I do think this is a race against time, where a 'run' is engineered to execute disaster. Smaller economies like the UK sit fully immersed in the water, barely afloat. Our Glorious Dear Leader Starmer just does not see the urgency.....
If UK is a smaller economy, then what about my nation?
2.9T USD vs 0.5T USD
On the other hand, we're a) not an island and b) our population is ca 10.5 million rather than 68 million.
Am I assuming correctly that domestic production of food is a hot topic in the UK at present? It is here, what with us only being self-sufficient on carrots and sugar-beets at present...
China has cut its U.S. bond holdings in half over the last few years.
Now that's worrying. Let's hope they are just playing games.
I don't know what to make of this. I can hardly balance my checkbook.
I'm not checking my 401K. I'm avoiding the televised hand-wringing.
I guess I'm in the camp of DO SOMETHING. TRY ANYTHING.
For four years, Americans have had a senile Leader of the Free World, a giggling total wingnut who's a heartbeat away from him, a Congress of blatant liars, and a collection of media hacks.
Trump LOVES being the center of attention and thrives in an environment of chaos--b/c it gives the world a terrible case of indigestion.
If you like "Let's buy Greenland," you're going to LOVE "Tariff everything!"
My 'Hot Take' as the hip young people would say is the top 1% own 85% of the stock market. The top 10% like 98%. The bottom 50% own 0%. So this whole "OMGGGG The Stock Market is CRASHINGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in the media is a reflection of the views of the top 1% and not the majority.
The irony here is the top 1% is largely a house of cards and all the "profits" they've earned recently during the pandemic where their wealth went up like 40% and the bottom 50% went up 4%..... Additionally, for decades before that, the top 1% made money by shipping jobs overseas and decimating American manufacturing. So its natural, they won't make the same insane levels of profit if they are paying American workers, American wages and quite frankly, the average bottom 50% American is okay with that. They'd love to be able to work a factory job and make $50/hr and on one salary, own a house and support a wife and two kids; like the boomers had in the 60-70s.
The bottom 50% doesn't care much if the lose 4% of their net worth if it evens the playing field and billionaires are brought down a peg and lose that unearned 40% bullshit-covid-policy profit where they literally had the government shut down their small businesses. They only care if they still believe in CNN, MSNBC and the media. The giant tanking of democratic support in the polls, even among democrats, suggest even that narrative of the bought-n-sold-for party is starting to wane. Nobody believes the narrative of oppression like they used to. They are all starting to think about individual accomplishments and their own friends/local tribe. Not group identities as much.