288 Trump’s Unnecessary Trade War: The Biggest Unforced Policy Error in our Lifetimes OR “Have a Nice Day”
Augment?
Screenshot?
Secretary of Defense Rock: “Wall Street bets discord is so goddamn funny right now” — Bluesky
From predator to prey is how CNBC analyst Scott Weiss put it today at about 12:15 pm on The Halftime Report. He pointed out that he never thought Trump was going to be good for stocks which makes him perhaps a minority on Wall St. This was certainly not what Jim Cramer was saying before the election. Indeed one of the many mysteries of this last election was why so many on Wall St believed the particular snake oil that Trump is a “dealmaker” who will be great for the market. Then again I never unerstood the particular snake oil that Trump is a “dealmaker” who would be good for Ukraine.
UPDATE: Tim Walz argued on Chris Hayes the other night that the biggest myth is that Trump knows anything about business-which has the inconveience of being true Trump is at most a brander and a criminal-quote: early on he learned it was better to work with criminals than honest people
The idea that this is the biggest unforced policy error in the lifetimes of many of us-depending when you were born-was expressed by Tyler Cowen. Sumner quoted Cowen in his blog but finished with his own thoughts:
Of course it could be worse, much worse. What if we also had a HHS head that didn’t believe in modern medicine? What if we had a FBI director that didn’t believe in the rule of law? How about a State Department that didn’t think Russia was to blame for invading Ukraine? How about a Defense Secretary that liked to leak war plans to the media?
Seriously, all this goes far beyond tariffs. The Trump administration is trying to stoke global nationalism, even going so far as to support far-right European parties opposed to rearmament. They are trying to create a new might makes right global order, where countries like Russia are rewarded with territory ceded by weaker countries. The goal seems to be to destroy any sort of multilateral organization like Nato that would provide strength through numbers, as these alliances are most useful to smaller nations. This could lead to a wave of smaller countries developing nuclear weapons. China no longer has anything to lose from military adventurism, at least in terms of American economic retaliation.
Overall, the goal seems to be to recreate the conditions of the 1930s, a global trade war and an aggressive nationalism where the strong prey upon the weak.
Have a nice day.”
Bringing back the 1930s? – by Scott Sumner
FN: Interestingly Peter Thiel has been telling a narrative for sometime that implies HE TOO wants a return to the 1930s-see Chapter Charles Johnson.
Going back to Tyler Cowen he puts it succinctly: “Liberation day was even worse than expected:
Tyler Cowen: ‘Liberation Day’ Was Even Worse Than Expected
This is pretty much true about everything regarding Trump not just his trade policy. Going back to my question above whichi never ceases to fascinate me of how so many including people preusmably intelligent and very well educated could believe Trump is actually good for the stock market I think this goes backto a central fallacy with Trump. The economy did pretty well for the first three years before Covid hit. After Covid hit it was a disaster but Trump argued-not at all compellingly as far as I’m concerned but many apparently WERE COMPELLED-that somehow 2020 shouldn’t count on his record as Covid was bad luck and what happened under him would have happened under anyone.
Again many both on Wall St and Main St seemed to buy into this particular canard-also this particular brand of snake oil. Call it the Drinking Bleach fallacy-good analogy as Trump at one point literally advised the public to drink bleach to avoid Covid. There are certain types of people-much of it on what Al Gore once called the extra Y chromosome Right-who if you tell them they shouldn’t drink bleach they will do it just to spite you, “troll the libs” etc and then when it doesn’t kill them the first day will extrapolate from this they should drink bleach every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
This is how many who voted for Trump in 2024 reason and how he himself reasons. Indeed after the #GenocideJoe started telling people not to vote for Biden there was pushback on the issue of harm reduction-wouldn’t Trump 2.0 the Absolute Immunity Edition be even more dangerous? Many of them scoffed that they survived Trump the first time-and so presumably they assumed they would again. Trouble is that we-barely-survived Trump the first time not because he isn’t so bad but because there were enough people in his Administration who saw their main job of restraining his worth instincts and ideas.
Trump 1.0 to a large extent relegated him to driving the bumper cars but the people really steering the car knew how to drive. Ok so I was just watching Sarah Longwell’s interview with Nicole Wallace and Longwell argued that for the kinds of voters she speaks to they have to “touch the stove” themselves-this is the problem. It’s better not to touch the stove at all. This is what we #ResistanceLiberals have been saying the last nine and three quarters years-Kamala Harris just had her first big public speech this week after Trump’s launching of a trade war against the entire world and said it: “I don’t want to say I told you so…”
This need to touch the stove yourself explains a big part of why we’re in the disastrous state that we’re in. So when the #ResistanceLibs say the famous words: ‘I don’t want to say I told you so…” it’s based on the understandable frustration of so many being so clueless as to need to touch the stove themselves-I mean what are they three?
Opinion | Trump’s tariff intuitions won’t help Americans (or penguins) – The Washington Post
Wall Street thinks Trump’s tariffs will eat Main Street alive
Trump likes to believe he’s a ‘very stable genius with exceptional political instincts’ AND a lot of people sort of drunk that coolaid during and after his first term. FEw will make that mistake going forward
ProChoice Mike: “True story by the way: Hank Hill said this www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiLw…” — Bluesky