That makes sense. Thank you
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I remember then getting spooked in 97 and REALLY getting spooked in 2008 and they are much much higher now!
You don’t really lose unless you sell during the spooked times.
Kind of like gambling in Vegas. The odds always favor the house and those attempting to time market ups and downs, generally lose.
But there are those lucky few who do actually make lots of money doing exactly that. My now deceased brother was able to hold his own playing the market. He never got rich, but he did ok.
Way too much work for my blood. I prefer to simply sit tight and let the market work its magic.
Wealth redistribution. They destroyed US rice growers. Nixon and Kissinger.
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Timing ups and downs is risky.
I just have some well established mutual funds and let them ride.
And that is why most people, as they get older, switch out of mostly-stocks and into mostly-bonds.
This is the first generation to keep playing the risky edge of the stock market even as they are older.
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I am having trouble sourcing this but:
“A recent study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows a growing trend of retirees maintaining higher stock allocations, with 52% of those over 55 holding over 70% in stocks in 2024, up from 38% in 2011.”
Retirees then:
“I won’t have a chance to make back any losses better play it safe.”
Retirees now
“All-in on stocks.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5198214-trump-pledges-reciprocal-tariffs/
What does he think this will accomplish?
Liberation Day to be renamed Market Manipulation Daily.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/24/trump-tariff-april-2-sectors
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One man pushes a button on a machine and the machine produces 10,000 chips.
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Another man pushes a button on a machine and it produces 10,000 chips.
Does it really matter who much we pay the man?
This is why we are the second largest manufacturer in the world, making high value items.
It is also why Asia will never make our cinderblocks,
our soft drinks,
our refrigerated foods
and a bunch of other stuff (sofas?, file cabinets?)
They will never flip our burgers, nor plumb our houses.
It’s about comparative advantage.
Correct.
It’s also why, IMO the tariffs aren’t going to result in a surge in US manufacturing. They don’t change the basic free market dynamics of labor costs/item cost and things like shipping weights etc…
It’s folly to think raising prices on americans and engaging in trade wars limiting access to markets for our current manufacturing base will be good for us.
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So according to the WSJ, Trump warned automakers not to raise car prices after his tariffs take effect…he will “look unfavorably on them” and that they should be “grateful” he ended Biden’s EV mandate that put “so many burdens on them”.
Article is a pay article…I’ll see if I can find a free version. For now here’s a free summary.
So, two points:
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Command economy? This is what MAGAs voted for? Just like when Trump put tariffs on agricultural products in his first term and then subsidized American farmers so prices wouldn’t go up. This is supposed to “make us great”?
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But that option isn’t available this time so instead Trump slaps on tariffs, then threatens businesses if they take the steps that tariffs always force them to take. This is a good thing?
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What the HELL is this with Trump’s fascination with making sure everyone show proper “gratitude” toward him? This keeps popping up everywhere.
This last one is a personal pet peeve of mine…it speaks to ridiculous immaturity.
Do you even love America? Then stop trying to ruin Liberation Day.
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Tariffs, as long as they don’t sliide down the slippery slope of “free money” thinking raise revenue.
They are better than deficits, better than payroll taxes, better than several taxes.
As far as job creation . . . You are right that people tend to overestimate how much they will help.
The other big advantage to tariffs (and this does impact job creation, but it is difficult to get an exact count) is they are a clean “economically ideal” way to offset the myriad of non-tariff barriers many countries have imposed against free trade.
- Europe funds a lot of its economy with a VAT but rebates the VAT for exports
- China has two currencies and fixes its currency value, plus it outlaws unions or even moving out of a town where labor supply is high and wages are low.
- Mexico outlaws broad categories of foreign land ownership, gives preferential treatment to is agricultural collectives, and the cartels run everything from the unions to the local governments to the avocado market.
The arguments against tariffs are almost always based on some hypothetical "fair-trade/level-playing field model that simply does not exist except in the minds of the gullible.
I don’t think other countries revenue models or even their ownership laws make much difference to the tariffs conversation.
We want our companies to be able to sell into their economies. And we want them to be able to buy things from them to keep their companies going. How those countries govern is irrelevant to that goal.
Except for China - China’s model does create an unfair advantage our companies can’t compete with. Which is why we should have stayed in the TPP.
The purposes of tariffs.
It’s just insanity.
How are you defining “better” here? More economically efficient?
