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Posted
5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

This is making the rounds of the socials.  Black Monday talk.  For the financial historians, any accuracy to it?

stock.thumb.jpg.e566189475823dd55aec3df97091fbbf.jpg

The Japanese, Chinese, and South Korean markets are getting slaughtered on Monday morning. It's only a matter of hours before ours does as well. It's all the fault of Americans and the stupid fucks they elected, and the world won't forget this. 

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Posted
24 minutes ago, Hermanator said:

The Japanese, Chinese, and South Korean markets are getting slaughtered on Monday morning. It's only a matter of hours before ours does as well. It's all the fault of Americans and the stupid fucks they elected, and the world won't forget this. 

Holy shit, you'r not kidding, their markets are down 5-10% with most of them towards the 10% side.

And our futures aren't looking hot.

And we all saw it coming.

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:


That’s not a bad thing. Never trust a bird that can’t fly. They’re up to something, and it’s not good.

You just KNOW they're raking in the big bucks with their publishing business

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Posted

That 70S Show Lol GIF by Peacock

Truth Details | Truth Social

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Yesterday, China issued Retaliatory Tariffs of 34%, on top of their already record setting Tariffs, Non-Monetary Tariffs, Illegal Subsidization of companies, and massive long term Currency Manipulation, despite my warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs, above and beyond their already existing long term Tariff abuse of our Nation, will be immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set. Therefore, if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Posted
14 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i love the "thank you for your attention to this matter." some admin assistant talk in the middle of his international relations.

Yeah, not sure if that's meant for Xi or for my elderly relatives who have no idea what's going on but are pleased that he appreciates their attention to this matter.

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Posted
44 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

i love the "thank you for your attention to this matter." some admin assistant talk in the middle of his international relations.

Or the really old school "govern yourself accordingly."

Posted

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/china-resolutely-opposes-trumps-50percent-tariff-threat-vows-retaliation.html
 

Quote

China’s Commerce Ministry said it “resolutely opposes” U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of escalating tariffs, and vowed to take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests. The comments came after Trump said he would impose an additional 50% duty on U.S. imports from China Wednesday, if Beijing does not withdraw the 34% tariff it imposed on American products last week.

The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake,” the statement said, according to a CNBC translation. “China will never accept it. If the U.S. insists on its own way, China will fight to the end.”

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Posted (edited)

This analysis piece and the other following story (below) about China doubling down on industrial output should be read together.

For Xi, China’s Strongman Leader, Ceding to Trump Is Not an Option
China sees little to gain in capitulating to President Trump’s tariff threats, labeling them “blackmail” and vowing to “fight to the end.”

Xi Jinping wants you to know that he will not be cowed.

Confronted with the latest threat from President Trump of an additional 50 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing reverses its retaliatory levies on U.S. imports, China’s top leader has remained defiant. His Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday accused the United States of “blackmail” and declared that Beijing would “fight to the end.”

But behind the bravado is a more complicated set of realities for Mr. Xi that makes it politically and economically untenable to offer concessions to the country’s single largest trading partner and chief rival for global influence. With Mr. Trump also refusing to back down, a devastating trade war between the two largest economies may be inevitable — a showdown with painful consequences that will be felt across the world.

The dilemma for Mr. Xi is that looking weak is not an option, but hitting back risks further escalation. The Chinese leader has cast himself as a national savior who is rejuvenating his country’s greatness. As a result, Beijing has less flexibility to back down from a fight with Washington, as other U.S. trading partners like Vietnam have tried, because it could undercut Mr. Xi’s legitimacy, analysts say.

“Beijing’s response to date has emphasized three things: resolve, resilience, and retaliation,” said Julian Gewirtz, a former senior China policy official at the White House and State Department under President Biden who is now writing a book on U.S.-China relations.

“Xi has built up an image of himself as a defiant strongman helming a powerful country, and China’s official messaging is conveying that they are determined to stand up to U.S. pressure even at high costs,” he said.

That helps explain why China scuttled a deal to sell a portion of TikTok to American investors last week in response to Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and why it is resisting a sale of the ports owned by the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison along the Panama Canal.

cont'd

Spoiler

It also plays into why Beijing on Tuesday threatened more countermeasures if Mr. Trump went through with imposing an additional 50 percent in tariffs on Chinese goods. China has said it is willing to hold talks, but not under duress.

China’s leaders are also likely calculating that a clash with the Trump administration is inevitable, analysts say. Mr. Trump’s tariffs last week — which also targeted countries like Vietnam and Thailand, where Chinese companies have set up factories to skirt earlier U.S. tariffs — would be seen in Beijing as evidence that Washington is determined to block China’s rise.

“From this vantage, there is little to be gained from capitulating to Trump’s latest demand, because it would not resolve the underlying challenge from the United States,” said Ryan Hass, the director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. “At best, they believe, it would merely postpone America’s determination to destroy China’s economy.”

The rising tensions make a meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump increasingly unlikely.

Mr. Trump, who regards unpredictability as his signature weapon, has said he is open to engaging with Mr. Xi, even suggesting the Chinese leader would visit. But Chinese officials are reluctant to schedule a meeting until the two sides have negotiated details in advance.

Even if Mr. Xi were to cave and submit to Mr. Trump’s demands to cancel China’s retaliatory tariffs, it is unclear what, if any, trade deal would make a meaningful dent in the yawning trade imbalance between the two countries. The United States imported $440 billion worth of Chinese goods last year, more than three times the value of the $144 billion of U.S. goods that China imported.

Beijing sees Mr. Trump as singularly focused on undermining China’s dominance in exports in order to bring manufacturing back to the United States, said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“Decoupling might be the endgame,” Ms. Sun said, describing how China is likely interpreting Mr. Trump’s motives.

Mr. Xi has long warned that China’s rise would likely not go unchallenged by the West, and invested heavily in efforts to build up China’s self-reliance.

This week, as stock markets around the world tumbled, Beijing mobilized state-owned banks and investment companies, known informally in China as the “national team,” to shore up their holdings of Chinese shares in an effort to stem the decline. Chinese stocks rose slightly on Tuesday after big declines a day earlier.

And the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s mouthpiece, published a commentary on Sunday urging Chinese citizens to have confidence in China’s ability to weather the tariffs. The piece argued that China has expanded its trade markets outside the United States and that the Chinese economy is growing more self-sufficient with the help of breakthroughs in technology like artificial intelligence.

Economists say those points are true, but that a full-blown trade war on the scale threatened by Mr. Trump will still inflict considerable pain on China. If the Trump administration imposes an additional 50 percent tariff, it could bring the U.S. levy on Chinese goods to 104 percent. For some products, though, the rate is likely to be much higher because of tariffs that date back to Mr. Trump’s first term.

Chinese exporters might not be able to simply divert their goods to other countries because the flood of Chinese exports has already been met with concern in major markets like the European Union.

At the same time, in this game of tariff brinkmanship, analysts in China think Mr. Trump will be more likely to succumb to domestic pressure to change tack because of the soaring costs of goods and plummeting stock values in the United States.

“If it’s a question of who can endure more pain, China will not lose,” said Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.

The United States needed China, Mr. Wen said, more than China needed the United States because Chinese factories make parts and components that cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

“Other countries will buy goods from China and then sell them to the United States,” he said.

Part of China’s strategy has also been to use the chaotic consequences of Mr. Trump’s tariffs to try to draw the rest of the world away from Washington’s orbit.

Mr. Xi is reportedly planning to visit Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam next week. Beijing has also tried to project a united front with Japan and South Korea against Mr. Trump’s tariffs, though officials in Tokyo and Seoul, which both rely on America for security, have distanced themselves from the Chinese position.

On the same day that Mr. Trump unveiled his tariffs, China’s Foreign Ministry posted a video on social media casting the United States as a source of harm and instability, with references to the U.S. president’s push to deport migrants and to tariffs imposed on cars newly delivered at a port. “Do you want to live in a world like this?” a narrator asks.

That was followed by scenes of Chinese peacekeeping troops and Chinese rescue teams pulling victims out of the rubble after Myanmar’s recent earthquake, laid over a soundtrack featuring John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

“There’s no question Beijing is milking this moment,” said Danny Russel, a diplomacy and security analyst at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington. The Foreign Ministry’s video is “pure propaganda jujitsu” aimed at “painting Trump’s tariffs as reckless U.S. chaos while China offers order and partnership.”

“But the view from Beijing is conflicted,” Mr. Russel said. “Beijing’s instinct is to avoid interrupting its enemy when he’s making a mistake, but they’re also deeply worried those mistakes could crash the global economy, and China with it.”

 

‘The Tsunami Is Coming’: China’s Global Exports Are Just Getting Started
A staggering $1.9 trillion in extra industrial lending is fueling a continued flood of exports that could be spread even wider across the world by the Trump tariffs.

For decades, the world’s largest car factory was Volkswagen’s complex in Wolfsburg, Germany. But BYD, the Chinese electric carmaker, is building two factories in China, each capable of producing twice as many cars as Wolfsburg.

Recent data from China’s central bank shows that state-controlled banks lent an extra $1.9 trillion to industrial borrowers over the past four years. On the fringes of cities all over China, new factories are being built day and night, and existing factories are being upgraded with robots and automation.

China’s investments and advances in manufacturing are producing a wave of exports that threatens to cause factory closings and layoffs not just in the United States but also around the globe.

“The tsunami is coming for everyone,” said Katherine Tai, who was the United States trade representative for former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

President Trump’s steep tariffs announced on Wednesday, which have caused stocks in Asia and elsewhere to plunge, were the most drastic response yet to China’s export push. From Brazil and Indonesia to Thailand and the European Union, many countries have already moved more quietly to increase tariffs as well.

Chinese leaders are furious at the recent proliferation of trade barriers, and particularly Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs. They take pride in China’s high savings rate, long work hours and abundance of engineers and software programmers, as well as its legions of electricians, welders, mechanics, construction workers and other skilled tradesmen.

On state television Saturday night, an anchor solemnly read a government statement condemning the United States: “It is using tariffs to subvert the existing international economic and trade order” so as “to serve the hegemonic interests of the United States.”

Five years ago, before a housing bubble burst, cranes putting up apartment towers dotted practically every city in China. Today, many of those cranes are gone and the ones that are left seldom move. At Beijing’s behest, banks have rapidly shifted their lending from real estate to industry.

China is using more factory robots than the rest of the world combined, and most of them are made in China by Chinese companies, although some components are still imported. After several years of rapid growth, overall installations of new factory equipment have already jumped another 18 percent this year.

When Zeekr, a Chinese electric carmaker, opened a factory four years ago in Ningbo, a two-hour drive south of Shanghai, the facility had 500 robots. Now it has 820, and many more are planned.

As new factories come online, China’s exports are rapidly accelerating. They rose 13.3 percent in 2023 and then another 17.3 percent last year.

cont'd

Spoiler

Lending by state banks is also financing a boom in corporate research and development. Huawei, a conglomerate making items as varied as smartphones and auto parts, has just opened in Shanghai a research center for 35,000 engineers that has 10 times as much space for offices and labs as Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Leaders around the world are struggling to decide whether to raise trade barriers to protect what is left of their countries’ industrial sectors.

China has been rapidly expanding its share of global manufacturing for decades. The growth came mainly at the expense of the United States and other longtime industrial powers, but also of developing countries. China has increased its share to 32 percent and rising, from 6 percent in 2000.

China’s factory output is bigger than the combined manufacturing of the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain.

Even before Mr. Trump won a second term, Biden administration officials warned during their final year in office about industrial overcapacity in China. They raised some tariffs, notably on electric cars.

But during their first three years, Biden administration officials mostly focused on tighter export controls for technologies like high-end semiconductors, citing national security concerns. They left in place tariffs of 7.5 percent to 25 percent that Mr. Trump had imposed on half of China’s exports to the United States in his first term.

It remains uncertain how the president’s much tougher approach this time will play out. Tariffs have occasionally slowed China’s growth in exports, but not stopped it. Other nations are on high alert for the possibility that Chinese exports could be diverted elsewhere, threatening the economies of longstanding U.S. allies like the European Union and South Korea.

China’s automakers were preparing a push into the American car market in 2017, when Mr. Trump first took office. GAC Motor in Guangzhou, China, brought dozens of U.S. car dealers to the city’s auto show that November. The company announced plans to sell gasoline-powered sport utility vehicles and minivans in the United States by the end of 2019.

But GAC and other Chinese automakers canceled their plans after Mr. Trump included cars in his initial 25 percent tariffs several months later.

Chinese companies still sell almost no cars in the United States. That is unlikely to change: With Mr. Trump’s latest moves, Chinese carmakers now face U.S. tariffs as high as 181 percent.

Blocked in the United States, Chinese automakers have continued building factories and have pivoted their export campaigns elsewhere. Their sales have soared in Australia and Southeast Asia, taking market share from Japanese and American brands. In Mexico, Chinese carmakers held just 0.3 percent in 2017; by last year, it was over 20 percent.

Rapid sales gains in the European Union, and evidence of Chinese government subsidies, prompted E.U. officials last October to impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on electric cars from China.

China is not just building car factories. It has built more petrochemical refinery capacity in the past five years, for example, than Europe, Japan and South Korea together have created since World War II. And China is on track to build these refineries even faster this year. Petrochemicals are then turned into plastics, polyester, vinyl and tires.

Robert E. Lighthizer, who was the United States trade representative in Mr. Trump’s first term, said that the latest American tariffs “are long overdue medicine — the real root cause is decades of Chinese industrial policy that has created breathtaking overcapacity and global imbalances.”

China is exporting so much partly because its own people are buying so little. A housing market crash since 2021 has wiped out much of the savings of the middle class and ruined many wealthy families.

Tax revenues are falling, but military spending is rising rapidly. That has left the government wary of spending on economic stimulus to help consumers. China has offset its housing debacle instead with its export campaign, creating millions of jobs to build, outfit and operate factories.

Some Chinese economists have recently joined Western economists in suggesting that the country needs to strengthen its meager social safety net. At the start of this year, the minimum government pension for seniors was just $17 a month. That barely buys groceries, even in rural China.

The country’s best-known economist, Professor Li Daokui of Tsinghua University, publicly called in January for raising the minimum monthly pension several fold, to $110. The Chinese government could afford it, he argued, and extra spending by seniors would stimulate the entire economy.

Chinese officials rejected his advice. When the budget came out on March 5, it had an increase in monthly pensions — but it was just $3, bringing them to $20 a month.

The same budget included $100 billion for investments, including ports and other infrastructure that help exporters. And there was a new program to upgrade technology used in manufacturing across 20 Chinese cities.

 

Edited by bolverk
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Posted

Trump’s Tariffs Are Already Reducing Car Imports and Idling Factories
A few carmakers have closed factories, laid off workers or shifted production in response to the auto tariffs that took effect last week.

President Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imported vehicles, which went into effect last week, are already sending tremors through the auto industry, prompting companies to stop shipping cars to the United States, shut down factories in Canada and Mexico and lay off workers in Michigan and other states.

Jaguar Land Rover, based in Britain, said it would temporarily stop exporting its luxury cars to the United States. Stellantis idled factories in Canada and Mexico that make Chrysler and Jeep vehicles and laid off 900 U.S. workers who supply those factories with engines and other parts.

Audi, the luxury division of Volkswagen, also paused exports of cars to the United States from Europe, telling dealers to sell whatever they still had on their lots.

If other carmakers make similar moves, the economic impact could be severe, leading to higher car prices and widespread layoffs. The tariffs on cars are among the first of several industry-specific levies that Mr. Trump has in his sights and could offer early clues about how businesses will respond to his trade policies, including whether they raise prices or increase manufacturing in the United States. The president has said he also wants to tax the imports of medicines and computer chips.

Applying the new tariff to imported cars could increase their cost to consumers by thousands of dollars, sharply reducing demand for those vehicles. For some Jaguar Land Rover or Audi models, the tariffs could amount to more than $20,000 per car.

cont'd

Spoiler

While much of the initial impact of the tariffs has been disruptive, in at least one case Mr. Trump’s duties have had the intended effect of increasing production in the United States. General Motors said late last week that it would increase production of light trucks at a factory in Fort Wayne, Ind.

The longer-term impact of the 25 percent tariffs is unclear. Many automakers are still trying to figure out how to avoid increasing prices so much that consumers can no longer afford new cars. Investors are pessimistic. Shares of Ford Motor, G.M. and Tesla have fallen in the past several days of trading.

“Everyone in the automotive supply chain is focused on what they can do to minimize the tariff impact to their own balance sheets and to prices,” said Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at CarGurus, an online shopping site.

But carmakers have never before had to deal with the imposition of such high tariffs with such little notice. Nor have they had as little insight into what the president will do next, analysts and dealers said.

“The traditional playbook is not enough,” said Lenny LaRocca, who leads the auto industry team at the consulting firm KPMG.

Mr. LaRocca predicted that automakers would increasingly focus on producing larger, heavier sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Those vehicles, many of which are assembled in U.S. factories, are usually the most profitable and give companies more room to absorb the cost of tariffs rather than passing it on to customers.

Many modern assembly lines are able to produce several models, giving companies flexibility to shift to the most profitable vehicles and to abandon vehicles that don’t make as much money. Mercedes-Benz has said it will take advantage of flexible assembly lines at its factory in Alabama.

This strategy comes with downsides. It may be harder for car buyers to find moderately priced new cars. Already, the average price of a new car is almost $50,000.

Analysts say that this much is clear: Tariffs will not prompt companies to open new factories or reopen closed plants right away. Companies won’t take that expensive step until they are sure that the tariffs are permanent and that investing hundreds of millions — or billions — of dollars in new production capacity will pay off.

“I haven’t seen any big moves,” Mr. LaRocca said. “It’s wait and see.”

Some carmakers and suppliers expanded their U.S. operations before Mr. Trump took office. Often, they were reacting to the coronavirus pandemic, when it became risky to rely on distant factories for critical parts. Others made big investments in factories that make electric vehicles or E.V. batteries to take advantage of incentives offered by the Biden administration.

ZF, a German parts maker, spent $500 million last year to expand a factory in South Carolina that produces transmissions for BMW and other automakers. And in recent years G.M. has opened two new U.S. battery factories with a South Korean partner, LG Energy Solution, to make the most important component of electric vehicles.

In the short run, some foreign carmakers may simply stop sending vehicles to the United States, either because they can no longer make a profit or because they can make more money elsewhere. That may be the case with Jaguar Land Rover. The company, known for luxury sport utility vehicles made in Britain, sells about one-fifth of its cars in the United States.

If other companies stop selling certain models to Americans, consumers will have fewer vehicles to choose from and the remaining automakers will have more leeway to raise prices.

So far, however, the tariffs have not led to widespread price increases for new cars. Hyundai Motor said last week that it would not raise the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of Hyundai and Genesis cars until June 2.

Of course, car dealers can raise prices even if an automaker pledges not to. That happened a lot during the pandemic, when the supply of new vehicles was limited by shortages of computer chips and other parts.

Dealers and automakers have reported brisk sales in recent days as people have rushed to buy vehicles before the tariffs took effect. The average time that a vehicle spent on the lot fell from 77 days at the end of January to fewer than 50 days at the beginning of April, according to CarGurus.

Demand has been especially high for Japanese brands like Honda, Subaru and Nissan, apparently because buyers assume they are imported, said Sean Hogan, the vice president of Sierra Auto Group, which owns a dozen dealerships in Southern California. All three Japanese companies have factories in the United States, though they do import some cars.

Another tariff shock will come on May 3, when the Trump administration will apply tariffs to auto parts. That means that even cars made in the United States will be affected because virtually all vehicles contain components from abroad. Repairs will also become more expensive.

“The educated public is definitely making some moves to get ahead of the tariffs, which I think is smart,” Mr. Hogan said.

But the long-term impact of Mr. Trump’s trade policies is still impossible to predict, he said. “This administration moves pretty fast, and you really don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Mr. Hogan added. “Buckle up.”

 

Posted

image.png.b5cb8d1825f8f68983040a93f0b0e5bf.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/business/trump-tariff-wall-street-reaction.html

Wall Street billionaires are not used to being on the outside looking in. But that is where they find themselves after President Trump ignored their appeals to call off his tariff plans which they fear could endanger the economy.

With the backdrop of rapidly mounting stock market losses, corporate titans have worked every angle — phone calls, social media and even a typically staid shareholder letter — to try to change Mr. Trump’s mind.

The day after the president announced his most sweeping round of tariffs last week, chief executives from major banks, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, had a private meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick organized by a lobbying group in Washington. But Mr. Lutnick was not persuaded to reverse course, three people briefed on the sit-down said.

Over the weekend, megadonors to Mr. Trump’s re-election effort tried a different tack, pleading their case in calls to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, people familiar with the calls said. Those efforts also came up empty.

By Monday, hedge fund billionaires — many of whom had been loud and proud boosters of Mr. Trump’s second term — were going public with their cries.

“The global economy is being taken down because of bad math,” the hedge fund manager William A. Ackman posted Monday morning on X. He added, “The President’s advisors need to acknowledge their error before April 9th and make a course correction before the President makes a big mistake.”

Others chimed in, calling for a stronger fight.

Andrew Hall, a billionaire oil trader who has been critical of Mr. Trump in the past, saluted Mr. Ackman on Instagram for being a Trump supporter who was speaking out about tariffs. “At least he is willing to reverse himself and call out this stupidity,” Mr. Hall said of Mr. Ackman. “Where are the other ‘financial titans’? Why aren’t they speaking up?”

A few are doing so, though more diplomatically and in dribbles.

cont'd:

Spoiler

Mr. Dimon, the JPMorgan chief, waded into the fray on Monday morning with an investor letter saying the tariffs could dampen consumer and investor sentiment and hamper economic growth.

Mr. Dimon, who was complimentary to a degree of tariffs in the days after Mr. Trump’s election, stopped short of warning of a severe downturn but said the turmoil was “causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.”

Laurence D. Fink, chairman of the investing colossus BlackRock, took a blunter tone during a lunchtime address on Monday at the Economic Club of New York, warning that “the economy is weakening as we speak.”

In his first public remarks on the tariffs, Mr. Fink also predicted that a wide group of consumers would feel the pain from tariffs, citing Barbie dolls as an item that could cost more.

“Most C.E.O.s I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now,” he told the group.

The state of affairs has shocked financiers who enjoyed access to decision-making by presidents of both parties. It is particularly jarring because during Mr. Trump’s first term, he regularly hailed gains in the stock market as a measure of success.

“I am not sure Wall Street can change the president’s mind,” Robert Wolf, a former chairman of UBS Americas, said. “But hopefully his donors and Mar-a Lago friends are being frank with him on this flawed approach.”

For a brief moment on Monday morning, it looked as if Wall Street had gotten through to Mr. Trump. A report that he was planning to pause his tariffs caused the stock market to swing wildly from losses into positive territory.

But after the White House denied the report and Mr. Trump reiterated his commitment to the tariffs, the S&P 500 finished the day down another 0.2 percent. The index ended Monday almost 18 percent below its mid-February peak, teetering on the edge of a bear market.

image.png.5f0db7217435826a7cc39cdea917d5c0.png

A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said in a statement, “The Trump administration maintains regular contact with business leaders, industry groups and everyday Americans, especially about major policy decisions like President Trump’s reciprocal tariff action.

“The only special interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making, however,” Mr. Desai continued, “is the best interest of the American people — such as addressing the national emergency posed by our country running chronic trade deficits.”

The sell-off has been alarming on Wall Street because a stable market means that corporate deal-making can go forward, and that banks can lend to companies and consumers without fear of defaults.

With the market dropping at a pace not seen since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when everyday life ground to a halt, Wall Street executives have been scouring their clients and investments for signs of distress.

One major investment bank, according to a person with knowledge of its plans, was examining whether it would need to reduce the value of its billion-dollar loans to so-called investment-grade companies — ones typically considered safe bets — before its public earnings results. Banks are scheduled to begin reporting their latest results on Friday.

Another big conversation topic was the private market for loans, which has ballooned since the last major financial crisis in 2008 and typically involves financing risky companies. Private lenders have long argued that any stress to their system would be contained, but these firms have also never been faced with a contraction this size.

While the concerns of Wall Street power brokers can often seem removed from the concerns of average Americans, the arguments that finance executives are making to Mr. Trump have included how his trade policy threatens the economy, not just stocks.

The global financial crisis of 2008, which was set off by a drop in the value of esoteric mortgage bonds, led to a housing market collapse that lingered for years. Many American businesses rely on sales in countries that are threatening retaliatory tariffs.

When financiers have spoken to Trump administration officials in recent days, the response has been that the White House is focused on long-term job creation in industries, such as manufacturing, that have moved overseas. The market turmoil, Trump administration officials have said, may be a necessary temporary disruption to allow for longer-term change.

A prominent executive acting as an intermediary between Wall Street and Trump officials said he had begun telling colleagues and competitors to stop trying to persuade Mr. Trump to delay the tariffs and instead ask to whittle away at individual levies for industries that would find it practically impossible to quickly replace imported goods.

There are already signs that Wall Street has been humbled.

When some of the chief executives who met with Mr. Lutnick last week regrouped for a phone call three days later, the conversation centered not on how to sway Mr. Trump but on how to protect their banks from the decisions that he was evidently committed to carrying out, two people briefed on the discussion said.

On Tuesday morning, even Mr. Ackman was toning down his critique, writing in another X post that he was supportive of Mr. Trump’s plan to deploy tariffs to eliminate “unfair trading practices.” Mr. Ackman added that “doing so without giving time to make deals creates unnecessary harm.”

 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, bolverk said:

such as addressing the national emergency posed by our country running chronic trade deficits.”

It all comes down to this -- these fucking morons think that all trade deficits are the devil, and must be eliminated.  Which is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.  We're going to hold out until Vietnam buys as much stuff from us as we buy from them.  Jesus Tapdancing Monkeyfucking Christ, I don't have words for how stupid this is.  We are waging an unwinnable war, and destroying ourselves in the process.

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Posted

I would bet a large chunk of my personal wealth that someone high up in the administration spread rumors on Wall Street that Trump was going to remove/pause the major tariffs.

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Posted
5 hours ago, bolverk said:

image.png.b5cb8d1825f8f68983040a93f0b0e5bf.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/business/trump-tariff-wall-street-reaction.html

Wall Street billionaires are not used to being on the outside looking in. But that is where they find themselves after President Trump ignored their appeals to call off his tariff plans which they fear could endanger the economy.

With the backdrop of rapidly mounting stock market losses, corporate titans have worked every angle — phone calls, social media and even a typically staid shareholder letter — to try to change Mr. Trump’s mind.

The day after the president announced his most sweeping round of tariffs last week, chief executives from major banks, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, had a private meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick organized by a lobbying group in Washington. But Mr. Lutnick was not persuaded to reverse course, three people briefed on the sit-down said.

Over the weekend, megadonors to Mr. Trump’s re-election effort tried a different tack, pleading their case in calls to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, people familiar with the calls said. Those efforts also came up empty.

By Monday, hedge fund billionaires — many of whom had been loud and proud boosters of Mr. Trump’s second term — were going public with their cries.

“The global economy is being taken down because of bad math,” the hedge fund manager William A. Ackman posted Monday morning on X. He added, “The President’s advisors need to acknowledge their error before April 9th and make a course correction before the President makes a big mistake.”

Others chimed in, calling for a stronger fight.

Andrew Hall, a billionaire oil trader who has been critical of Mr. Trump in the past, saluted Mr. Ackman on Instagram for being a Trump supporter who was speaking out about tariffs. “At least he is willing to reverse himself and call out this stupidity,” Mr. Hall said of Mr. Ackman. “Where are the other ‘financial titans’? Why aren’t they speaking up?”

A few are doing so, though more diplomatically and in dribbles.

cont'd:

  Reveal hidden contents

Mr. Dimon, the JPMorgan chief, waded into the fray on Monday morning with an investor letter saying the tariffs could dampen consumer and investor sentiment and hamper economic growth.

Mr. Dimon, who was complimentary to a degree of tariffs in the days after Mr. Trump’s election, stopped short of warning of a severe downturn but said the turmoil was “causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.”

Laurence D. Fink, chairman of the investing colossus BlackRock, took a blunter tone during a lunchtime address on Monday at the Economic Club of New York, warning that “the economy is weakening as we speak.”

In his first public remarks on the tariffs, Mr. Fink also predicted that a wide group of consumers would feel the pain from tariffs, citing Barbie dolls as an item that could cost more.

“Most C.E.O.s I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now,” he told the group.

The state of affairs has shocked financiers who enjoyed access to decision-making by presidents of both parties. It is particularly jarring because during Mr. Trump’s first term, he regularly hailed gains in the stock market as a measure of success.

“I am not sure Wall Street can change the president’s mind,” Robert Wolf, a former chairman of UBS Americas, said. “But hopefully his donors and Mar-a Lago friends are being frank with him on this flawed approach.”

For a brief moment on Monday morning, it looked as if Wall Street had gotten through to Mr. Trump. A report that he was planning to pause his tariffs caused the stock market to swing wildly from losses into positive territory.

But after the White House denied the report and Mr. Trump reiterated his commitment to the tariffs, the S&P 500 finished the day down another 0.2 percent. The index ended Monday almost 18 percent below its mid-February peak, teetering on the edge of a bear market.

image.png.5f0db7217435826a7cc39cdea917d5c0.png

A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said in a statement, “The Trump administration maintains regular contact with business leaders, industry groups and everyday Americans, especially about major policy decisions like President Trump’s reciprocal tariff action.

“The only special interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making, however,” Mr. Desai continued, “is the best interest of the American people — such as addressing the national emergency posed by our country running chronic trade deficits.”

The sell-off has been alarming on Wall Street because a stable market means that corporate deal-making can go forward, and that banks can lend to companies and consumers without fear of defaults.

With the market dropping at a pace not seen since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when everyday life ground to a halt, Wall Street executives have been scouring their clients and investments for signs of distress.

One major investment bank, according to a person with knowledge of its plans, was examining whether it would need to reduce the value of its billion-dollar loans to so-called investment-grade companies — ones typically considered safe bets — before its public earnings results. Banks are scheduled to begin reporting their latest results on Friday.

Another big conversation topic was the private market for loans, which has ballooned since the last major financial crisis in 2008 and typically involves financing risky companies. Private lenders have long argued that any stress to their system would be contained, but these firms have also never been faced with a contraction this size.

While the concerns of Wall Street power brokers can often seem removed from the concerns of average Americans, the arguments that finance executives are making to Mr. Trump have included how his trade policy threatens the economy, not just stocks.

The global financial crisis of 2008, which was set off by a drop in the value of esoteric mortgage bonds, led to a housing market collapse that lingered for years. Many American businesses rely on sales in countries that are threatening retaliatory tariffs.

When financiers have spoken to Trump administration officials in recent days, the response has been that the White House is focused on long-term job creation in industries, such as manufacturing, that have moved overseas. The market turmoil, Trump administration officials have said, may be a necessary temporary disruption to allow for longer-term change.

A prominent executive acting as an intermediary between Wall Street and Trump officials said he had begun telling colleagues and competitors to stop trying to persuade Mr. Trump to delay the tariffs and instead ask to whittle away at individual levies for industries that would find it practically impossible to quickly replace imported goods.

There are already signs that Wall Street has been humbled.

When some of the chief executives who met with Mr. Lutnick last week regrouped for a phone call three days later, the conversation centered not on how to sway Mr. Trump but on how to protect their banks from the decisions that he was evidently committed to carrying out, two people briefed on the discussion said.

On Tuesday morning, even Mr. Ackman was toning down his critique, writing in another X post that he was supportive of Mr. Trump’s plan to deploy tariffs to eliminate “unfair trading practices.” Mr. Ackman added that “doing so without giving time to make deals creates unnecessary harm.”

 

Reap, you motherfuckers, reap.

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Posted
43 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Why does this British, homosexual college dropout continue to have sway over the right wing?  So bizarre.

He who has the absolute dumbest thing to say at any given moment holds the power.

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Posted

Give this a listen. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economincs at Wisconsin, Master of Arts in Applied Economics from Michigan, and Master of Public Administration from Harvard. Eloquence, intelligence and visionary. Listen to what Singapore is going to do for it's citizens to help deal with the bullshit.

What the fuck is this administration doing?

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, crash_davis said:

Give this a listen. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economincs at Wisconsin, Master of Arts in Applied Economics from Michigan, and Master of Public Administration from Harvard. Eloquence, intelligence and visionary. Listen to what Singapore is going to do for it's citizens to help deal with the bullshit.

What the fuck is this administration doing?

 

Clear communication about what's going on.

Coherent and logical response to changing conditions.

Compassion for the people/businesses facing the crisis.

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Posted
3 hours ago, crash_davis said:

Give this a listen. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economincs at Wisconsin, Master of Arts in Applied Economics from Michigan, and Master of Public Administration from Harvard. Eloquence, intelligence and visionary. Listen to what Singapore is going to do for it's citizens to help deal with the bullshit.

What the fuck is this administration doing?

 

Imposing ridiculous tariffs? That's a caning.

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Posted
14 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It all comes down to this -- these fucking morons think that all trade deficits are the devil, and must be eliminated.  Which is among the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.  We're going to hold out until Vietnam buys as much stuff from us as we buy from them.  Jesus Tapdancing Monkeyfucking Christ, I don't have words for how stupid this is.  We are waging an unwinnable war, and destroying ourselves in the process.

conflating a trade deficit with say unfair trading tariffs (i guess? fuck i don't know) is the chef's kiss to sign off on our suicide letter

 

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Posted

And the morning shows (Today Show, etc.) are now encouraging buying of things like toilet paper to "stock up" due to tariffs

Here comes the Great TP Shortage of 2025.

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Js1 said:

And the morning shows (Today Show, etc.) are now encouraging buying of things like toilet paper to "stock up" due to tariffs

Here comes the Great TP Shortage of 2025.

Tfw toilet paper is produced domestically, and usually within 100 miles of wherever you're buying it. Goddamnit people are so stupid

Edit: I guess I'll take panic and runs on toilet paper over runs on the bank

Edited by Captainant
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Posted
3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

And the morning shows (Today Show, etc.) are now encouraging buying of things like toilet paper to "stock up" due to tariffs

Here comes the Great TP Shortage of 2025.

They don't even realize how insanely stupid and expensive it would be if we imported all of our toilet paper.

I mean, sure, some of us use bespoke artisanal toilet paper that was hand-crafted by Guatemalan virgins, but that toilet paper does not come on a big-ass cargo ship from China, it is carried on the backs of burros from Guatemala straight to our border.

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Posted

I'm very quickly moving from laughing at the absurdity of all this in a "we fucking deserve this" manner to anger and sadness for all the irreparable damage we're doing to our future and any remaining goodwill we have left...for fucking nothing.

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Posted

I'm not sure I understand China's play here, also are Taiwan and China regarded as the same for Tariffs? I thought the US treated them differently. The Singapore PM is a smart dude.

Posted
1 minute ago, aggie08 said:

I'm very quickly moving from laughing at the absurdity of all this in a "we fucking deserve this" manner to anger and sadness for all the irreparable damage we're doing to our future and any remaining goodwill we have left...for fucking nothing.

You sound so woke.  The 3 men who have lost to a trans woman in a sporting event aren't fucking nothing! 

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Posted
1 minute ago, aggie08 said:

I'm very quickly moving from laughing at the absurdity of all this in a "we fucking deserve this" manner to anger and sadness for all the irreparable damage we're doing to our future and any remaining goodwill we have left...for fucking nothing.

Added the emphasis that makes this so fucking horrific.  It's just goddamned tragic.  This country and economy is being wrecked, never to fully recover.....for no sane reason whatsoever.

Posted
20 minutes ago, Js1 said:

And the morning shows (Today Show, etc.) are now encouraging buying of things like toilet paper to "stock up" due to tariffs

73e020f56c4a86221823bc32113b4316d2-25-be

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Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, immamac said:

I'm not sure I understand China's play here, also are Taiwan and China regarded as the same for Tariffs? I thought the US treated them differently. The Singapore PM is a smart dude.

How do you think China should play it? Capitulate to a moron? They can withstand months of a trade war and they have a lot to gain if the US falls in its superpower status. I hope they push back, retaliate, and prove what a stupid weak beta ass loser dotard truly is.

Edited by 'stache
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Posted
1 minute ago, 'stache said:

How do you think China should play it? Capitulate to a moron? They can withstand months of a trade war and they have a lot to gain if the US falls in its superpower status. I hope they push back, retaliate, and prove what a stupid weak beta ass loser dotard truly is.

I'm not sure that everyone's read on China's current position is correct. They are in fairly dire straights, probably even worse than the US from the debt crisis. It's why no one is saying the Yuan will replace the Dollar as the world's reserve currency, they are completely unstable right now.

It's also telling that the only 2 countries that are escalating to crazy levels are between the US and China. I'm just trying to figure out the play here, the play can't be embargo each other. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, immamac said:

I'm not sure that everyone's read on China's current position is correct. They are in fairly dire straights, probably even worse than the US from the debt crisis. It's why no one is saying the Yuan will replace the Dollar as the world's reserve currency, they are completely unstable right now.

It's also telling that the only 2 countries that are escalating to crazy levels are between the US and China. I'm just trying to figure out the play here, the play can't be embargo each other. 

Yeah, China has a MASSIVE real estate bubble that makes 2008 look like tiddlywinks. But their government also literally owns all of those properties, so the risk profile is jacked to the tits.

 

Shit is gonna get buckwild

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, immamac said:

I'm not sure that everyone's read on China's current position is correct. They are in fairly dire straights, probably even worse than the US from the debt crisis. It's why no one is saying the Yuan will replace the Dollar as the world's reserve currency, they are completely unstable right now.

It's also telling that the only 2 countries that are escalating to crazy levels are between the US and China. I'm just trying to figure out the play here, the play can't be embargo each other. 

They didn’t start this, the pain is going to happen either way, why capitulate? The optics of bowing down to a US president who is off the fucking rails and who has caused his country to be an international pariah doesn’t seem worth the costs which again are going to happen either way. It might also gain them some favor with the new world order where the US is on the wrong side of civilized societies.

Edited by 'stache
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