[Tiste Simeon]

Do you think the absolute crash of the US markets as well as the rest of the world will make a difference to people's opinions on cheeto Hitler?

I don't.

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 07 April 2025 - 03:12 PM, said:

Do you think the absolute crash of the US markets as well as the rest of the world will make a difference to people's opinions on cheeto Hitler?

I don't.

I think anyone still on board with him now is Jonestown 2.0. They are riding him into the dirt. The ONLY people trying to get out are the full-tilt grifters who KNEW who he was and what he was doing was bad, but rode his power (Rogan, Fuentes, Owens)....they were and are full aware of what he was doing and are not "in the cult"...they are grifters who saw a fucking opportunity...everyone who actually buys into his shit will ride his ride until their own personal wheels come off and even then will not disavow him.


Look at that dude whose wife was deported...said he would vote for Trump again...these people are lost and nothing will get them out.


That said, the BIG corporations that are starting to turn (JP Morgan) as the leopard eats their faces MIGHT shift the needle....but who knows...

[QuickTidal]

I'd love to know how so many Americans have fallen for the "Bringing manufacturing back to the US" lie...

A: The US moved from a manufacturing economy to an service economy in the goddamn 1970's and has never looked back.

B: Returning to a Manufacturing economy would require MASSIVE decade-long construction, land, and corporate projects to achieve...it's not like factories can be spat out as easily as he pretends.

C: If by some magical route the raw materials to DO all this manufacturing IN the USA exclusively actually existed in the states...who are you selling these products to? Leaving the world stage like they are doing, burning bridges with every ally...means that those trade parters are gone...and I think you'll find selling only to the US citizens is not going to be the boon you assume it is.

D: You don't have anyone willing to work the jobs in those factories. It's not the 18th century anymore, and it's not a wartime thing...so you can't staff those jobs you claim are returning...andf even if you COULD, the wages would be so high that all those US manufactured products would be ASTRONOMICALLY expensive compared to today. The whole ass reason corporations in the US farmed out labor to other countries with super cheap labor (or to migrants who would not mind the lower wage) was becuase of how cheap it was and therefore how cheaply they could sell shit to Americans to keep them appeased and away from rioting in the streets...when US-made tech (if such a thing ever existed without global help) costs people 4x what it would cost to import an identical item from another country still making and selling it cheaply...it's not going to be pretty.

E: Every burned bridge with every ally will have forced them to other trade partners (China chief amongst them) in the interim...like does no one realize that the only reason Canada has (fro example) 200% tariffs on Chinese vehicles is because the US asked us to? Without that in place we will be MUCH more amenable to Chinese EVs, which are on the whole cheaper, more efficient, and easier to maintain...and let's be clear once that ship actually sails....it's over for the US on the auto industry....because the Chinese Eps will ask to be made here in Canada too and our auto industry will simply leave the US behind...never mind that having them en masse in Canada (AKA on the continent as opposed to an ocean away) will simply force the US's hand on the topic. so isolationism is going to end the US on the economic front more than anything else...and we will all remember that a single mentally ill mad king did this to the WORLD...and the US let it happen.

So not even in the pipe-iest pipe dream will "manufacturing" be coming back to the US...but my gods, the MAGA cult really thinks this is going happen. every day I am freshly amazed at the sheer lack of overall intelligence.


Lastly, the world is moving on and the US instead of embracing this, is isolating itself away from that globalist move...and it's going to be left behind. People say that the US is a third world country with a Gucci belt....yall are about to lose the belt...

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 07 April 2025 - 05:07 PM

[worry]

QuickTidal, on 07 April 2025 - 05:03 PM, said:

B: Returning to a Manufacturing economy would require MASSIVE decade-long construction, land, and corporate projects to achieve...it's not like factories can be spat out as easily as he pretends.

Solution: Build one very big factory-making factory.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 07 April 2025 - 05:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 07 April 2025 - 05:03 PM, said:

B: Returning to a Manufacturing economy would require MASSIVE decade-long construction, land, and corporate projects to achieve...it's not like factories can be spat out as easily as he pretends.

Solution: Build one very big factory-making factory.

A Master-Mold of Factories if you will. LOL

[Werthead]

Perun's analysis of the dumbness of the tariffs is extremely well-done.

The worst part is when he finds the formulation to get ChatGPT to spit out the exact formula that Trump has been using, and ChatGPT provides it but also says, "NEVER USE THIS, IT IS DUMB."

He also notes that the tariff calculations do not include services, so technically the EU could retaliate solely against US services rather than goods and by this formulation, Trump would not have to retaliate (obviously he would, so the rules he came up with are really stupid).

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Amazingly the S&P500 is only down slightly today (was up earlier), and down by less than VEU (world minus United States) today and since the announcement, with Chinese equities down even more... so if you're overweight US stocks, now may be a decent time to rebalance your portfolio and buy more "world ex US" and China ETFs (FLCH and CNYA are nice ones). Granted, in terms of taxes it might be better to wait until the market really crashes, assuming it does. (One analyst wrote an article a few weeks ago arguing that a crash wouldn't happen because Trump could stop it with a tweet... thankfully I wasn't convinced that would happen, so I kept buying CAOS. But CAOS is only up a few percentage points so far (better than bonds, but not better than directly shorting the market)---I put in an extended hours limit order to sell half once it's up by 20% from where I bought it.)

Gold is also down about 5% since the announcement, even though it tends to be the top performing asset class during stagflation, and one of the best during geopolitical turmoil... might be a good time to buy some, especially if you don't need to sell stocks that are down by more than 5% since the announcement to do it. I just sold a bit of my Google and DHI for IAUM (physically backed gold, probably a bit safer in case of civil war...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 07 April 2025 - 07:45 PM

[Cause]

I wonder if this move being so blatant will finally allow what should be a very effective messaging strategy of pointing out how republican presidents have overseen every recession of the past 40 years and cause almost zero job growth in that time period as well. Maybe this 3 day shock can finally bring this to light?

Or maybe I’m being silly

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

EUAD (European defense and aerospace) may also be good to buy, since it's down by a lot and I expect the massive loss of trust in the US and negative sentiment towards US weapons / aerospace will benefit it, though IDK how much of a negative impact an inflationary recession in Europe may have on European defense spending. I bought a little. Of course German military spending helped bring Europe out of the Great Depression... even before they started plundering other countries iirc. (And of course it should go without saying that Nazi militarization was an overall negative... to say the least. Well, unless you're posting on Twitter or Truth Social etc., that is...)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 07 April 2025 - 07:51 PM

[Maark Abbott]

QuickTidal, on 07 April 2025 - 05:09 PM, said:

worry, on 07 April 2025 - 05:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 07 April 2025 - 05:03 PM, said:

B: Returning to a Manufacturing economy would require MASSIVE decade-long construction, land, and corporate projects to achieve...it's not like factories can be spat out as easily as he pretends.

Solution: Build one very big factory-making factory.

A Master-Mold of Factories if you will. LOL

Have I got a Dyson Sphere Program for you!

[QuickTidal]

Quote

One of the best descriptions of Trumps negotiation tactic(s) is from David Honig. I stumbled over this a few weeks ago, interesting read:

“I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don’t know, I’m an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of “The Art of the Deal,” a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you’ve read The Art of the Deal, or if you’ve followed Trump lately, you’ll know, even if you didn’t know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call “distributive bargaining.”

Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you’re fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump’s world, the bargaining was for a building, or for the construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins.

The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don’t have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over.

The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can’t demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren’t binary. China’s choices aren’t A: buy soybeans from US farmers, or B: don’t buy soybeans. They can also C: buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation.

One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you’re going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don’t have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won’t agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you’re going to have to find another cabinet maker.

There isn’t another Canada.

So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already.

Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM - HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem.

Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that’s just not how politics works, not over the long run.

For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here’s another huge problem for us.

Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it.

From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn’t even bringing checkers to a chess match. He’s bringing a quarter that he insists on flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.”

— David Honig

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 08 April 2025 - 12:20 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Trump had started telling allies in phone calls Monday morning that the end game of the tariffs would be sooner than people expect and that the White House is in talks with multiple countries, stressing that deals will be made, said one person familiar with one of those phone calls, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to share details of private discussions.

... and to avoid culpability for manipulating markets with false information, perhaps? this sentence from this article has been attributed with causing this morning's premarket stock rally... but the article continues:

Quote

A person close to the White House insisted that the tariff policy remains unchanged, though the administration is interested in seeing the offers other countries bring to the table. The person added that while they were initially concerned about the political impact of the tariffs, internal polling they have seen has changed their thinking.

The person said polling from outside groups that were in the field last week show that the tariffs are going over well with both the base and working class voters more broadly, which has alleviated some of the fears of political damage.

https://www.politico...saging-00277395

Quote

We're now squarely in a world of stories, emotion and guesswork. Or, as economists call it, radical uncertainty.

[...] The move from the quantifiable world of risk is both enormous and profound.

[...] a state of affairs where no one has any conviction about what anything might be worth, or even about what they don't know.

In such a world, the markets start to behave less like a weighing machine and more like a random number generator.

https://www.axios.co...513cebb9ae.html

[Cause]

Trump blinked. This makes it the 3rd time in less than 3 months. I wondered how his ego would allow him to do it, I forgot he has no shame so he just doesn’t care

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 09 April 2025 - 06:15 PM, said:

Trump blinked. This makes it the 3rd time in less than 3 months. I wondered how his ego would allow him to do it, I forgot he has no shame so he just doesn't care

Not clear yet whether the reciprocal tariff on the EU is on or off---since Trump announced he'd be "pausing" reciprocal tariffs (but not 10% baseline tariff) on "75 countries" that didn't retaliate "in any way", whereas the EU voted to retaliate. White House apparently refused to clarify when asked.

And

Quote

In a strange turn of events, the president seems to have added another 10 percent tariff to Canada and Mexico. Asked earlier if the 10 percent tariff extended to those countries, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said that it did. And a White House official clarified for me just now that that was the case. Previously, Canada and Mexico had been exempted from this round of "reciprocal" tariffs, though they still faced a 25 percent tariff that the president imposed last month on many of their goods.

https://www.nytimes....na-stock-market

[Edit: forgot to mention---Goldman Sachs announced that US recession is still the most likely scenario despite the "pause". Stagflation here we come... guess I'll buy a bit more gold while we wait.]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 April 2025 - 06:44 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Update, now Goldman Sachs says recession is not their baseline scenario. They could've double checked that before announcing that it was. Bleh.

[Edit: they've reverted to 45% probability of recession. So... probably not, but it's still close to a coin flip.]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 April 2025 - 07:04 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

The White House sent out some clarifications on the tariffs. It said tariffs on Canada and Mexico remain unchanged, including the exemption for goods trading under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The baseline tariff of 10 percent did not go into effect on Canada and Mexico on April 5 and neither country is getting the 10 percent baseline now. Officials indicated earlier today that the 10 percent universal tariff included Canada and Mexico.

Earlier today, the European Union approved its first retaliation measures targeting the United States over its tariffs[...] "That's bad timing for them, that's bad timing," Trump said in the Oval Office when asked about the matter and his threat to punish any foreign powers that retaliate. But Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, followed up to say the European Union had set a later date for implementation, adding: "Our expectation is it's going to be later still." Trump replied: "I'm glad that they held back."

https://www.nytimes....fs-stock-market

Oh ffs... I guess that means the "reciprocal tariffs" on the EU won't kick in until/unless the EU retaliatory tariffs do.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 April 2025 - 08:46 PM

[Garak]

Chaos, this is pure fucking chaos.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

It's market manipulation at this point. Everyone in the inner circle is raking in record trading profits.

[Cause]

Yip, I’m sure Trump is still under Audit and so won’t show his tax returns 😉

Still I’d bet my savings that junior dropped stocked before tariffs started and bought stock before the pause.

[Tsundoku]

Wondering how many corporations have done a cost/benefit analysis on hiring guys like The Jackal?