Political Posts

[Intelligent_Investor]

My personal contrarian take is Wall Street/the market/economists are overreacting. Everyone is out saying the tariffs are bad and won't solve the trade deficit issue but no one has come up with a better solution. Buffett is the only one that I would say has the best solution, but his solution isn't so different from broad based tariffs that it justifies such a big sell off in global assets imo. Wall Street just hates the fact that endless consumption by the American people is coming to an end

[Gregmal]

16 minutes ago, Intelligent_Investor said:

My personal contrarian take is Wall Street/the market/economists are overreacting. Everyone is out saying the tariffs are bad and won't solve the trade deficit issue but no one has come up with a better solution. Buffett is the only one that I would say has the best solution, but his solution isn't so different from broad based tariffs that it justifies such a big sell off in global assets imo. Wall Street just hates the fact that endless consumption by the American people is coming to an end

Totally on the money. There’s stuff with zero correlation to tariffs getting killed because “recession”, which frankly we ve heard enough from those folks over the years that they shouldn’t matter much either. People are just looking for excuses to justify panic and WS as usual is using the market to push/test both Trump and Powell.
 

While some of the numbers on the tariffs are blatantly over the top, the final end product result is not as draconian as the market selloff at this point implies. Nikes a poor example because the business has bigger issues, but simply put a “46%” tariff increasing the cost of a $140 pair of shoes $15-20 1)is totally different than what a lot of people are running around saying, ie the $140 shoes increase by 46%, and 2) that somebody of the mindset willing to pay $140 for clown shoes(not me) isn’t gonna pay an extra $10-15. Whatever the incremental difference it certainly doesn’t warrant 30% off the market cap. 

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

There you go

 

[Castanza]

8 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

There you go

 

 

Son of a bitch...

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

 

 

 

Guess not...

 

Edited April 7, 2025 by Dalal.Holdings

[LC]

1 hour ago, dealraker said:

This is the man we worship in the US today.  These things do happen, it is the awakening for us to realize now that it is our turn to live what we created.

 

77 million of our worst, at least

[dwy000]

13 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Totally on the money. There’s stuff with zero correlation to tariffs getting killed because “recession”, which frankly we ve heard enough from those folks over the years that they shouldn’t matter much either. People are just looking for excuses to justify panic and WS as usual is using the market to push/test both Trump and Powell.
 

While some of the numbers on the tariffs are blatantly over the top, the final end product result is not as draconian as the market selloff at this point implies. Nikes a poor example because the business has bigger issues, but simply put a “46%” tariff increasing the cost of a $140 pair of shoes $15-20 1)is totally different than what a lot of people are running around saying, ie the $140 shoes increase by 46%, and 2) that somebody of the mindset willing to pay $140 for clown shoes(not me) isn’t gonna pay an extra $10-15. Whatever the incremental difference it certainly doesn’t warrant 30% off the market cap. 

It's probably an overreaction to the final result but it's the uncertainty driving the overreaction.  Both the uncertainty of the final cost, the uncertainty of competitive reaction, the uncertainty of consumer reaction (yes $15 more isnt a ton but if.every other bill is rising by 10% you start to question if you need new shoes), and also the uncertainty of international reaction which could impact demand for your product globally.  There's a chain reaction.

 

The market can deal with just about anything. The one thing it truly hates is uncertainty. 

[no_free_lunch]

Just now, Jaygo said:

 

Can you illustrate the amount of tariffs that are being collected by Canada at the expense of the USA?

 

I know we have some that are meant as stop gaps for critical industries like Agriculture but as far as I am aware most items are free.

 

I order parts and equipment from the USA and its generally without duties.

I have no idea the amounts.  What does it matter, are we really debating there are counter tarriffs from our own government?  My point is simply that we are all being hypocrites and ignoring that everyone in the world is doing the same thing but only the US gets called out.

 

What I would like is to align with the US, kick China away and build trade around that alliance.

[Parsad]

31 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Totally on the money. There’s stuff with zero correlation to tariffs getting killed because “recession”, which frankly we ve heard enough from those folks over the years that they shouldn’t matter much either. People are just looking for excuses to justify panic and WS as usual is using the market to push/test both Trump and Powell.
 

While some of the numbers on the tariffs are blatantly over the top, the final end product result is not as draconian as the market selloff at this point implies. Nikes a poor example because the business has bigger issues, but simply put a “46%” tariff increasing the cost of a $140 pair of shoes $15-20 1)is totally different than what a lot of people are running around saying, ie the $140 shoes increase by 46%, and 2) that somebody of the mindset willing to pay $140 for clown shoes(not me) isn’t gonna pay an extra $10-15. Whatever the incremental difference it certainly doesn’t warrant 30% off the market cap. 

 

That being said, nothing changes policy faster than being wrong!  Cheers!

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/06/health/measles-texas-second-child-dies/index.html

[no_free_lunch]

Just now, Parsad said:

 

That being said, nothing changes policy faster than being wrong!  Cheers!

 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/06/health/measles-texas-second-child-dies/index.html

 

Go ask your doctor to provide safety data on the COVID vaccine.  I did.   See what happens.   You will get nothing...

[Paarslaars]

39 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

There you go

 

That is market manipulation at its finest. 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/trump-tariffs-live-updates-stock-market-crypto.html

 

White house denies it.

Edited April 7, 2025 by Paarslaars

[Blake Hampton]

1 hour ago, Intelligent_Investor said:

My personal contrarian take is Wall Street/the market/economists are overreacting. Everyone is out saying the tariffs are bad and won't solve the trade deficit issue but no one has come up with a better solution. Buffett is the only one that I would say has the best solution, but his solution isn't so different from broad based tariffs that it justifies such a big sell off in global assets imo. Wall Street just hates the fact that endless consumption by the American people is coming to an end

He also was touting that solution when our country wasn’t in a fiscal and monetary black hole.

[mcliu]

43 minutes ago, dwy000 said:

It's probably an overreaction to the final result but it's the uncertainty driving the overreaction.  Both the uncertainty of the final cost, the uncertainty of competitive reaction, the uncertainty of consumer reaction (yes $15 more isnt a ton but if.every other bill is rising by 10% you start to question if you need new shoes), and also the uncertainty of international reaction which could impact demand for your product globally.  There's a chain reaction.

 

The market can deal with just about anything. The one thing it truly hates is uncertainty. 

 

The increase might be far less than that. Imagine $100 shoes, with a cost of $20.. a 50% tariff increases costs to $30. However, due to excess capacity, that tariff difference is split between importer and manufacturer. So you end up with a cost of $25 and a final price of $105 at 50% tariffs. But most tariffs are only at 10%. 

 

So it's entirely possible that the tariffs might be deflationary if it affects aggregate demand. Consider energy prices which have declined 15%. That's on $2T/yr energy expenditure for the US and is an input in essentially everything.

[John Hjorth]

Enjoy! :

 

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114297331052690348

 

[Castanza]

52 minutes ago, LC said:

77 million of our worst, at least

 

oof....

[Luke]

4 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

Enjoy! :

 

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114297331052690348

 

Haha funny guy. Who is more self-reliant, the all producing manufacturing hub China or the US? Crazy guy. Interested to see what happens if there are 50% tariffs on anything from China, one of the largest most critical trading partners...

[LC]

3 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

oof....

A low blow, admittedly

 

But ya know, if our dear leader can toy with the livelihoods of 400mm people without clear reason, planning, or communication (and people will still defend him) - I wouldn't expect anyone to get upset about being called out on voting for it!

Edited April 7, 2025 by LC

[Luke]

China should retaliate with an immediate 75% tariff, you know, just to show who the big guy is.

[Gregmal]

2 minutes ago, Castanza said:

 

oof....

Well, it’s true. He’s just not counting the other 75-80m of the worst. Realistically only the top 10% or so should have meaningful say in anything but it’s not like that which is why politics have devolved into a game of bribe the plebs. 

[mattee2264]

It is all rather predictable.

 

If countries escalate then USA will escalate. 

 

If countries show a willingness to negotiate they will be rewarded with pauses and other concessions. 

 

But this all results in more uncertainty as the goalposts will continually move. 

 

[Pelagic]

China caving on their reciprocal tariffs, especially by tomorrow, seems unlikely. Do they get negotiated down over the next couple months, probably. But them being the first out with reciprocal tariffs while every other country was trying to figure things out was a deliberate choice on their part.

[mcliu]

2 hours ago, Viking said:

Not sure if this has been posted. Here is a short take on tariffs from the Economist. i liked the comment about what tariffs do to a domestic economy - it gets fat and lazy. Yes, the (‘protected’) US car industry back in the 1970’s was a train wreck. I think of that time/industry every time I hear the slogan ‘Make America great again.’ 

I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that once your entire industry gets killed it can't get ever become competitive. 

It'll be interesting to see how Japan and Germany react to Chinese vehicles since they're the other 2 major auto countries.

[John Hjorth]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

Haha funny guy. Who is more self-reliant, the all producing manufacturing hub China or the US? Crazy guy. Interested to see what happens if there are 50% tariffs on anything from China, one of the largest most critical trading partners...

 

 - Balsy - Or just balsy, like in balsy, the balls located on the chopping block

[Gregmal]

Yea. It’s why I prefer the “sucking up to dictators” route. Because Trump and China operate the same way. We will see 50% increases of tariffs to infinity because both use the same little man “can’t back down” approach to everything. 
 

Same as why it’s much more preferable if he and Kim Jong talk hoops and him and Putin wanna make fun of Obama together…much rather have that than a game of “my nukes are bigger”. 

Edited April 7, 2025 by Gregmal

[Spooky]

4 hours ago, mattee2264 said:

Trump's demands are unreasonable. The tariff math doesn't add up. It is all based on a gut feeling that America is being ripped off by the rest of the world and an arrogant belief that the USA can win any trade war and extract significant concessions from its trading partners. It is usual for Trump to start by asking for the moon but the rates he has set are more likely to encourage retaliation or inaction rather than bringing trading partners to the negotiating table. 

 

 

Agree. The US has the biggest, best and most dynamic economy in the world. But even it can't take on the whole world at once and isolate themselves completely.