"Let's start with the stock market yesterday. We talked about the almost 5 percent drop. This is actually $5 trillion of wealth lost since the inauguration. [snip] The stock market dropped here was actually larger than the stock market drop in every other major index, every other major country. In Japan, it was down 2.8 percent. In Europe it was down 2.6 percent. In the U.K. just 1.6, and in China just 0.6%. So why is that?
Trump thinks he's hurting all these people. He thinks everything is, you know, negotiation where somebody wins and somebody loses and he thought he was the winner and we turned out to be the loser." -- Steve Ratner on MSNBC this morning. (our emphasis)
"The US dollar experienced its largest single-day decline on record, dropping by 2.1% against major currencies. Investors are concerned about the potential negative impact of President Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs on the US economy, leading to a shift away from the dollar and towards safer assets like the Japanese yen and Swiss franc." -- CNBC this morning. (our emphasis)
"The U.S. job market is slowing at a time when Americans are increasingly anxious about what President Donald Trump’s trade wars are going to do to the economy.
When the Labor Department releases employment numbers for March on Friday, they are expected to show that U.S. businesses, government agencies and nonprofits added 130,000 jobs last month, down from 151,000 in February..." -- Associated Press this morning. (our emphasis)
"IF YOU failed to spot America
being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far” or
it being cruelly denied a “turn to prosper”, then congratulations: you
have a firmer grip on reality than the president of the United States.
It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free
world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired
economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions,
Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in
over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary
economic error in the modern era..." -- The Economist yesterday. (our emphasis)
And now for some "alternative facts":
"President Donald Trump offered a rosy assessment after the stock market dropped sharply Thursday over his tariffs, saying, 'I think it’s going very well.'
'The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom,' he said when asked about the market as he left the White House to fly to one of his Florida golf clubs."
Yes, it's likely everything's going to boom, as in "explode." But it's nice he's got a golf club to fly off to.
(photo: "We'll make those penguins on Heard and McDonald Islands pay!" Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
🤨🫧 Amazing how people still try to stay in that bubble...Trump is a rich, successful businessman AND the government should be run like a business! I know so many people who have confidently spoken these delusions and lies since 2015. Then they climbed into that bubble and that's that.
ReplyDeleteI have been trying these days to reach inside the bubble. OK, then, I don't like or agree with the analogy, but let's run with it! Trump is Chairman of the Board and CEO, the Cabinet is the other corporate officers (CFO, COO, General Counsel, etc.), Congress is senior and middle management, and civil servants are the employees of the corporation. But, that leaves out the other, most important stakeholder, the rest of us are the shareholders; the investors in the business. Any corporation that wants to succeed must give the shareholders a decent rate of return. Some of us are finally starting to demand better dividends, but too few of us are doing so.
I want to remind the bubble people that Trump has never run a large, publicly traded corporation with people he had to please. He ran a tacky little family business and everyone, mostly traumatized dependents, answered to his whims alone. He lied to banks and lawyers in order to find the money to keep going as he failed over and over. He never stood in front of a shareholders meeting trying to justify his existence to outraged people who had lost the value of their investments. So, he runs the US the same way!! The problem we shareholders face is that we have all our money in this one failed corporation. We have nowhere else to put our money and we must get sufficiently angry at the Chair who has ruined our life savings!!
Whether Trump is a Chair who should get a vote of no confidence and be replaced or a despot who must be ousted (my view), we'd better get busy! These are not normal times and I do not feel comforted that another election will happen in 2026. You do not rid yourself of dictators in an election!! 😳🤬✊️💪
Yeah, stock market go "boom", alright.
ReplyDelete