Tariffs tariffs tariffs. Who has ever thought about them? Who thought they were even around anymore but just a thing of the past. Everyone was content not knowing about them until Trump brought them up. Everyone was perfectly content not knowing about them and the butt banging we take from every country. But try to even them out and the whole country goes hysterical thanks to the Trump hatred.
I have zero Trump hatred. I have a big hatred with what happened to my money in the stock market the last 2 days and it appearing that I am not going to be able to buy a car I planned on buying this summer unless this crap gets sorted out. No one wins a trade war. Ronald Reagan got it right.
PS. I'm not saying there should not have been something done about the imbalance in trade, but the method chosen of not targeting the biggest offenders wasn't thought out. The blanket approach showed poor planning coupled with poor execution. That's a double thud. I just hope a recalculation is in order and in order soon, or else its gonna get really ugly. No one likes ugly.
It’s only a loss if you sell, right now. The markets take the stairs up, and the elevator down, and panic drives bad decisions more often than not. Analysts were warning of a correction back before Thanksgiving. I’d be willing to bet it takes about two weeks for most of this to be behind us.
Most of the tariffs are not exactly reciprocal, they are running at about 50% of what we are paying. There is a reason for that. There simply is no other US market for the world to go to. China, a manufacturing powerhouse, is painfully aware of the fact they literally can not feed themselves. The poorer countries are lined up TODAY to renegotiate their tariff structure with the US. See Vietnam for an example.
The people with real money are picking up some bargains. You telling me you’ve never seen a downturn before?
Best,
Ted
Sure, but I was much younger then and was willing to ride things out. I was in really good shape before this mess started. My mother who died a few years ago, got out of the market when her health started to go down hill. She saw the end coming and didn't want to take a chance on a crash because she knew she might not be able to have enough time to make it back. She was pretty smart. After she got out she never even looked at the market. No need to.
If I was in my 50's I wouldn't give a shit. Add 20 years to your 50's and you feel a good bit different. You have to also remember that over 60 percent of American's now are pretty much dependent on their 401K's because what they get from Social Security isn't near enough to live a good life once retired. Most of folks who have to draw from the 401K's to pay the bills every month aren't big fans of what is going on. Why would they be.
PS. Vietnam dialing in to say we will drop their barriers means almost nothing. They don't buy squat from us because they don't need what we sell for the most part. Its a poor country that has dirt cheap labor and as such has turned into a hub for making clothes and other things that won't ever be made here again because of that cheap labor. They pay their folks making that stuff about 300 bucks a month. That's never going to happen here, so why bring it back. Biggest thing Vietnam imports from the US is cotton, which is then used to make the clothes they export to the world. Like I said in the beginning, no one wins a trade war.
