April inflation comes in lower than expected — now at 2.3%, the LOWEST since COVID.

Good news, bad news. Let’s see what the next few months bring with tariff impact. Hopefully inflation is tamped down to the 2%.

 

Arent you the guy that predicted a recession every month for 3 years straight?

 

All those cancelled usaid orders among other doge cuts put a lot of grain and other foodstuffs on the market. Major doge demand side destruction

 

Again. It's way too early for the tariffs to impact anything. See you in 60 days.

 

A result of Trump backing down on tariffs. 145% tariffs are as good as a military blockade of Chinese ports. A 10% tariff is just inflationary. Companies dont mind inflation as much as not being able to do business.

 

So when you remove economy destroying 145% tariffs that nobody anticipated, the economy and stock market gets almost exactly back to what it was before you put in those economy destroying tariffs.

 

I think the Administration “flooded the zone” with bad data from the tariffs to make economic indicators garbage. We are likely looking at nothing making sense in the short term, and no comparable data in perpetuity. This will be a problem for “data driven” Fed talk. It’s a new paradigm with lots of misdirection.

 

I was reading somewhere there have been like over 50 announcements from the administration on tariff policy, whether raising/lowering, etc. That's like over 12 a month on average!

 

I think it a bunch of lies. In April, Bessent said he wasn’t part of the tariff policy and was just a passive observer. This week he is saying the Administration had a plan and it has worked beautifully. The narrative and talking points shift very quickly, but so often. It is impossible to hold them accountable.

 

Technically I believe they are 30%, as they have a weird way of breaking them down and describing them (10% reciprocal tariff plus 20% “fentanyl tariff”). I doubt markets react at all to 10%. 30% seems like it would be destructive on some things, I.e. electronics and toys. Some are “exempted” though so who knows how much actually ends up exposed to 30%. As I’ve said all along markets have never seemed to fully price the tariffs in. Markets were rattled by the 145% and the irrationality of the “calculations” used to come up with tariff numbers, but nobody was pricing in “total collapse” even at the low or when trade started getting compared to COVID-like numbers.

 

I think they follow the Costanza Rule of its not a lie if you believe it to be true, the truth just changes daily for them and they react in real time, Market up, economic genius, Market Down, Biden economy.

 

Okay, describe what we got in the "Trade Deal" with China that was "better" than we had in January. Be specific please.

 

Whatever you want to call it, its the equivalent of removing the gun you have pointed to your head before you enter a negotiation

 

What did we get? Other than temporary market disruption?

Seems like same shit as last time when he threatened to “blow up NAFTA”, then did the USMCA which most people described as NAFTA 2.0. Can you even articulate what was better about USMCA? Why do you expect any future trade deal to be better than status quo?

So far there aren’t even any deals to critique! All we have is “here’s some yuuuge tarrifs” and then “nevermind, those were actually too crazy so here’s some lower tariffs”. You think there’s a grand plan when their original tariff “calculations” included U.S. territories and penguin islands?!?

 

USAID is a drain on the American taxpayer. Doge has done nothing more than find fraud, share it, and make recommendations.

 

The “Trump backed down under duress” trope is predictable. The stock market was already up 14% in the past month when the deal was made. What duress? Obviously, investors were already feeling quite good before this week. Progressive “men should play in women’s sports” types make it up as they go.

 

DOGE is likely our last realistic shot to reign in the widespread abuse of the American taxpayer. If we end DOGE, our collapse becomes a matter of not if, but when.