The Real timschochet

Trump wrote on Truth Social that China is “begging for a deal”. But China says they’re not interested. NBC is reporting that it is the White House that is trying to reach out to China imploring them for a way out of this- to no avail. I think Xi can’t agree to Trump’s demands: both he and China would lose so much face that he would be removed from power if he did. So China has to respond the way they are: with more trade war, not less. This is what happens when you treat other countries like vendors you’re trying to avoid paying. Trump has put us in a huge mess here.

This is wrong. I say it will be very bad because that’s what every economist I can find tells me. I don’t think we will collapse.

Agreed. At least you understand that tariffs are not a good thing in themselves. You’re a step ahead of the President.

It’s funny; I’ve been accused of hyperbole here. I’ve used words like “disastrous” and “catastrophe” to describe these tariffs. But based on what I’m reading I’m not being hyperbolic enough. So here’s the deal: Donald Trump is not a good businessman. He drove several casinos into bankruptcy. Now he is literally trying to drive the USA into bankruptcy. He’s a moron. Those of you who voted for him are suckers; he has no idea what he’s doing. And we’re screwed.

Because there are no specific demands.

What I’ve never seen, and what I believe the world has never seen, is the market reacting to the actions of one man so directly. This is a completely unnecessary disaster. As of midnight tonight President Trump is imposing 104% tariffs on China. Nobody has made him do this. It’s not close to reciprocal. It’s completely arbitrary. I have no idea how the market will react tomorrow. I don’t imagine well, do you?

Wow, the gain has completely disappeared. I was not expecting this.

What I’m saying is that it’s going to take a very long time for it to go back up to the level it was before last Wednesday. And maybe it won’t for the forseeable future. If anything it’s likely to go down more. I certainly hope these “deals” come to fruition. But keep in mind even if they do they’re simply a face saving mechanism which would allow Trump to reverse himself. Most of these nations aren’t offering anything that they didn’t already give us. For example Israel had no tariffs on us, and Vietnam offered to remove all tariffs long before last week (see the Trans Pacific Partnership- we could have had a tariff free zone in the Pacific Rim that would have threatened China- Trump killed it during his first term- called it the worst deal ever. Nothing he negotiated now with Vietnam, Japan or South Korea will be as good as that deal would have been.)

No it really isn’t. 6 trillion dollars were lost on Thursday, Friday and Monday. That’s real money that belonged to regular people, their retirement funds. It was lost unnecessarily because of the asinine decisions of one man that almost everyone, including most of his closest advisors, tried to talk him out of. It wasn’t inevitable. Now this morning the market is up 600 points based on the hope that Trump reverses himself. But even if that happens the 6 trillion is probably not coming back. That’s lost, the initial damage is done. This is no game.

Musk is wrong about a lot of things, especially lately, but he is 100% right about the tariffs. His posting yesterday of Milton Friedman’s brilliant pencil speech was spot on. Friedman got it. Musk gets it.

I don’t think you or @avoiding injuries or most people reading this realize the long term changes (bad ones) that are coming to our society if these tariffs stay in place very long.

The “chicken little Tim’s” of the world include every economist that I can find. You’re deluding yourself if you think otherwise.

I don’t think it was 20 times. I don’t know how many times it was. All I can tell you is that I engaged in a long personal one on one discussion with Joe Bryant and he told me that while he was strongly considering shutting the whole thing down, I was NOT the reason. I tried to talk him out of it. I’m done posting about this. I probably shouldn’t have posted about this so much already; it’s a waste of time and not especially interesting, but I get a little sick and tired of all the lies told about me by the same people, including you. Your obsession with me is exhausting. Anyhow, done.

I guess believe what you want but this is 100% complete and total bullsh!t.

Well, feel free to call me delusional then because I don’t think I was part of the problem at all. Yes I posted quite a lot. That I don’t deny. But my posts were, as they were here, mostly issue oriented. The only time I engaged in personal insults in when I was goaded into it, unfortunately. MAGA jerks would personally insult me knowing that I wouldn’t report them; then I would respond in turn and they would report me and I got suspended a few times. Then they would post that I was the source of all problems in the forum and recommend it be shut down. The whole thing was deliberate. I finally got sick of it and after being suspended for a week left voluntarily for a month. During that month Joe shut the forum down. I was already gone and had nada to do with it.

This, I’m afraid, is hopeful nonsense. Unless Trump reverses course, the stock market disaster represents only the start of the catastrophic effects the tariffs will have on our economy, both short term and long term. Short term, we’re looking at an almost certain recession, possibly worse, and high inflation. Long term we’re looking at a contraction as China and Europe simply replace us as the trading giants worldwide. This isn’t a blip. It’s a total disaster. ETA- But I remain hopeful that Trump reverses course. We’ll know shortly if some face-saving “deals” are announced.

They didn’t contradict me. Why do you refuse to accept the idea that the MAGA crowd over there were a$$holes? They’re the ones who deliberately got that forum shut down.

The astonishing part is that you think what I wrote is revisionist.

Up 1200 points this morning but it’s almost completely based on the belief that Trump is either going to reverse the tariffs or announce new deals with important trading partners that will effectively nullify them. If neither of those happen expect the market to crater again.

Sorry you had a bad experience but what I wrote was completely accurate.

Read those posts again. He was advising everyone to post less, not just me. Shortly after that we had a private conversation in which I offered to leave the board if he thought I was creating a problem for him, and he said no and urged me not to. He never threatened me, he never warned me. The warning that @Captain Obvious linked was related to a specific incident, not to my overall posting in the board. I didn’t lie. And the FBG shutting down had nothing to do with me. It was dudes like Tonydead trying to get it shut down.

Dow futures up 700 points tonight based on reporting that Lutnick is out, and Trump will pull back on the tariffs tomorrow. Hope that’s right; we’ll see.

It sure is. I wanted it to be “my place” and lost my mind when conservatives showed up? Where do they get this? Also, FTR: Joe never once warned me about anything. He never once advised me to post less. He never once wrote publicly or told me privately that I was harming the forum, and we did have several public and private conversations on a variety of subjects. He threatened to shut the forum down, and finally did shut it down, because he couldn’t stop the personal insults and mass reporting. And as I wrote before 90% of that came from conservatives and MAGA folks, some of them who have posted in this thread. Many of them wanted the subforum shut down and continued their insults and reporting knowing it would happen.

Best of luck Jerry. You’re a good dude.

I’m ready to cheer on Trump with this talk of open borders. Open borders for people, trade, whatever he meant I’m good with it! More of this please.