Bull Market officially over!! Year heading negative.

[Cthulhu 2020]

He's got to keep breaking those deficit and debt records, he is literally trying to bankrupt the US.

I can't wait for the Republicans to magically start caring about the debt again under the next Democrat president. The debt is going to be so BIGLY and YUGE and day 1 of the next Democrat president's term, the entire debt and deficit will be entirely their fault. Because that's clearly how debts, deficits, unemployment, stock market, and everything else work. Day 1 is instantly creditable to the current prez.

[Draco-Onis]

I can't wait for the Republicans to magically start caring about the debt again under the next Democrat president. The debt is going to be so BIGLY and YUGE and day 1 of the next Democrat president's term, the entire debt and deficit will be entirely their fault. Because that's clearly how debts, deficits, unemployment, stock market, and everything else work. Day 1 is instantly creditable to the current prez.

America has a very short memory we give republicans power and they screw the pooch then it's up to democrats to fix it so they can wreck it again it's groundhog day.

[jeezusisacasual]

America has a very short memory we give republicans power and they screw the pooch then it's up to democrats to fix it so they can wreck it again it's groundhog day.

That has been the strategy since 1980, Starve the beast mentality. The overall goal is to remove people from popular public programs that they feel a specific segment of the private sector could stand to gain from. Least not forget that Clinton was working with the Republicans to privatize Social Security in the 90s if it was not for the Blow job news it likely would have passed with support from both sides of the isle. This is why Neo-Liberalism is disgusting and scary, Liberal on the social issues but conservative on the economic issues. Altho i think the next president or even Trump himself will have to bailout the private sector due to how leveraged it is at the moment but either way corporations will continue to rule America.

[Dontrike]

^^ For completeness, you'd better look into why this trade war is waged at all,

That's easy, it's because we have a president that has no idea what tariffs are, doesn't understand basic math, leading, economics, or anything else for that matter while needing to look big. He fucked up the chance to actually take China on economically with the help of other countries, but he went and pissed off literally every country that doesn't have some crazy asshole trying to make friends with him (Russia, North Korea) thanks to how dumb he is.

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It's too early to be panicking (or celebrating, etc). What happened is that Trump hit the Chinese and the Chinese didn't yield.

He didn't hit them at all. He hit the American taxpayer. Trump is quite literally one of the few people who couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.

Trump might actually win, by the way (although I wouldn't want that).

Hahahahahahaha....oh wait, you're serious?

No, he can't.

[rda]

That's easy, it's because we have a president that has no idea what tariffs are, doesn't understand basic math, leading, economics, or anything else for that matter while needing to look big. He fucked up the chance to actually take China on economically with the help of other countries, but he went and pissed off literally every country that doesn't have some crazy asshole trying to make friends with him (Russia, North Korea) thanks to how dumb he is.

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He didn't hit them at all. He hit the American taxpayer. Trump is quite literally one of the few people who couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.



Hahahahahahaha....oh wait, you're serious?

No, he can't.

Mate, I am saying it in the friendliest way possible. Stop thinking you can get informed reading copy/pastes and laughable incoherent "analysis" of those copy/pastes from folks like Breccia. Breccia doesn't know what he / she reads, his / her knowledge is sporadic, all his / her energy goes into concocting wild interpretations. Expand your horizons.

You said three things above and they all betray just how little you know about the subject you are discussing.

I am not saying it for the internet points. I am reducing my presence on this forum considerably, since the story with the Mueller report is over and since all threads even partially touching it are a pathetic mess of nonsense from "your" side. While dismantling pathetic non-points is fun to an extent, that fun is not a lasting one, it gets boring. So, I am not saying the above in order to "win" something - I know that you probably are going to reply to this post and I care so little about that, that I am telling you right now that I am not going to read it or reply to it, feel free to say whatever.

I am saying to you sincerely: you know very little. It is seen that you know very little. Instead of trying to fight on the forums faking it, just really read about what is going on, and get some academic knowledge about how things work. Right now you are like a toddler with low vision who can tell that something is moving near him, but cannot even name objects. Really, stop this, get off the forums, and if you are interested in what's going on, learn about it, read things, get some education, etc.

Parting words (not sure I am going to reply to any of your posts in this thread; again, not trying to offend, it just does not make sense to reply to empty slogans):

The trade war happened because the Chinese are using dishonest practices. Trump adds to that his own vision of what's dishonest and his vision is wrong and flawed, but there's more to it than his vision, there are real issues that needed / need fixing.

Trump hit both the US and the Chinese. Who has been hit harder is not a trivial thing to say, this depends on what timeframe / scope we are talking about.

Trump might win, yes. The moment to hit the Chinese is not a bad one, they are trying to restructure and are pretty vulnerable. I personally wouldn't want Trump to win, for many reasons (all economic), but that's besides the point.

(You can now write your reply about how I am dishonest, troll, wrong about everything bla bla bla.)

[Dontrike]

You said three things above and they all betray just how little you know about the subject you are discussing.

And yet nothing you said refuted what I said and only were personal attacks. Gee I wonder why.

For someone who claims to know what they are talking about your argument sure get destroyed often while all you offer is insults.

Trump hit both the US and the Chinese. Who has been hit harder is not a trivial thing to say, this depends on what timeframe / scope we are talking about.

No, Trump is hitting America harder than China. He said this trade war would be easy, but the only ones suffering are his base and those that voted, and for some dumbass reason still voting, for him. He can proclaim America is raking in the dough like a forest in California to prevent fires, but in reality he's fucking over only the rubes he duped.

Obama had a plan in place to take on China and Trump shit all of it only in the hopes that he is smart enough to do so alone, and as we all know he is not. He has fucked up at every single point of this meaningless trade war.

Trump has failed at every point in every single thing he has set out to do, including this useless, unneeded trade war.

Trump might win, yes.

*snicker* Sure, yeah, okay. He can totally win. All he has to do is unfuck what he fucked up in the first place, get back to normal, and then finally do some good. We can all hope he does well, as there's no point in hoping he fucks up, but unfortunately history has shown he only fucks up.

(You can now write your reply about how I am dishonest, troll, wrong about everything bla bla bla.)

And perhaps you can write a reply that doesn't include insults, but I doubt that.

[Breccia]

Trump tries to calm everyone down by tweeting, because he doesn't have another option. Claiming "we are right where we need to be" and "Remember, they broke the deal with us & tried to renegotiate."

Um...is Trump trying to say, that breaking a deal with someone and then trying to negotiate, is bad? Because I know a certain NAFTA 1.0.0.2 that proves he's a hypocrite.

Now, Trump is probably trying to change the narrative to the most recent talks falling apart. He did make China an offer, they changed the deal and sent it back, Trump didn't like it. Problem is, if we go back to, I dunno, Jan 20 2017 and ask "who broke a deal and tried to renegotiate first?" I think you'll find more orange than red.

Also:

We will be taking in Tens of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs from China.

This marks the 1,000th time Trump has lied and said China is the one paying the tariffs.

And he once again says the US govt will take this tariff money, buy the crops farmers can't sell, and give it to hungry nations around the world. Fair enough. Can't wait to see how the GOP handles "taking American tax money and giving it to other countries" when they don't even like making SNAP payments for people here.

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For more this Axios article.

The first rule of trade negotiations is that they take place in private. The minute either side starts setting out goals and demands in public, positions become hardened and compromise becomes an embarrassing climbdown.

With the imposition of massive new tariffs this week, accompanied by explicit threats, Trump has taken Sino-American trade negotiations outdoors, into a public arena where they have much less chance of success. Even before announcing retaliatory countermeasures, China has similarly gone public with its own red lines. Resolving this dispute is not yet impossible, but it has become exponentially harder. Among the dangers:

Recession: Bank of America is already warning that "a trade war could cause a global recession." As Axios' Dion Rabouin has written, this is a war the world cannot afford.

The above statement was mentioned earlier.

Inflation: American tariffs on Chinese goods will increase the price of those goods. If that ends up contributing to domestic inflation, Trump's desire for a rate cut will look even less realistic.

Trump has yelled at the Fed to keep rates low, lower than the market demanded, for some time. Inflation eats his numbers and makes him look bad, but when you pump a lot of extra money into a sealed system and don't spend it -- for example, if it goes to stock buybacks -- then inflation is mandatory. If prices (the CPI) also go up, the Fed will have no choice. As linked before, Trump is on path to make the average tariff on imported goods 7.5%, well over the 2016 amount. Considering how much the US imports, this move alone could raise the CPI by 1 or 2 percent over and above what it was going to do on its own. Wages are already flat due to the current inflation rate and lack of meaningful tax benefits. Higher prices, without higher wages, make real wages go down. Which Trump is doing pretty much all by himself.

Food dumping: As the FT's Alan Beattie notes, Trump has already started talking about using the tariffs as an excuse to dump America's agricultural surplus onto poor countries, undercutting their domestic markets.

I hadn't considered this before. While I'm not sure how it would affect American farmers right away (would Trump pay the current, or newly reduced, market value? or would he Pull a Trump and offer even less saying "Take this pittance, or take nothing"? Because it could go either way), but if one country (America) starts giving away a lot of free food, anyone (else) selling food to those same people see a drop in demand, and prices drop. That's not even 101 level. Yes, these people are starving, yes I'm good with feeding them, but there will be side effects so don't act surprised when they show up.

"When you have both sides convinced that they have the upper hand, you get the kind of conflict that you have right now," China trade expert Patrick Chovanec told Foreign Policy. He added:

"If we want China to embrace structural reform, that requires real commitment—it’s not something we can just twist their arm to do, they have to buy into it. And they have to believe that it is not going to sink them or hurt them. When you basically strongarm them into doing something they really don’t want to do, and they’re convinced it’s harmful to their interests, at some point they are going to cheat, push back, or scuttle it, and it’s just a question of when."

Trump's trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, might consider these tariffs to be a tough way of forcing China to make concessions. And the market seems hopeful that the trade war will be temporary, on the grounds that ending it would be rational for both sides. But Trump himself wanted these tariffs all along.

And, finally, it's time again for Guess the Speaker!

It’s not China that pays tariffs. It’s the American importers, the American companies that pay what in effect is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers

That's Chris Wallace of FOX News, and he said it right to Kudlow's face.

"Fair enough. In fact, both sides will pay in these things, and of course it depends," Kudlow responded, with Wallace interjecting to point out that "if it’s a tariff on goods coming into the country, the Chinese aren’t paying."

"No, but the Chinese will suffer [gross domestic product] losses and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market and goods that they may need," Kudlow said.

Wallace replied by noting that Trump has said China pays the tariffs.

"They may suffer consequences, but it’s U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?" he asked.

Kudlow responded by saying he didn't disagree with that characterization, adding that both sides will suffer because of new tariffs.

The What He Meant Was team is going for "when Trump said China would pay the tariffs, what he meant was, China will pay because of the tariffs." But it was like pulling teeth to get even that out. Wanna see the video?

[jeezusisacasual]

This would be happening one way or another regardless of which party was in power just by different means. The whole point of the TPP was to limit Chinese influence which i think was bad because it gave various corporations to much power but was needed to curtail Chinese influence. American corporations are responsible for the rise in the authoritarian Chinese government by wanting to exploit labor and keep prices low so they should bear the brunt of the damage to be honest but having our government wanting to do the bidding of these corporations is disgusting while they forget its people are rationing medical care.

Trump is going to win re-election if the average consumer does not feel the sting or bite from tariffs which is whatever at this point. The market will factor in these growing problems going forward with more volatility but it has to be understood that we are near the end of this cycle so a fall will happen much sooner rather then later it will be up to the people in elected positions to fix the mess that has been created but i fear they again will not do enough to help smooth it out as interest rates are already so damn low that we could very well see negative rates which some nations have to do thus far.

I wonder what a world will look like with a trade war raging and a serious economic downturn combined.

[Zan15]

Can't wait for next week on the stock market, should be a crazy ride like the past week. Wonder if by the end of the month we are back to the numbers on my original post...

I mean its only been a -1% stock market for the last 14 months.

[rda]

Regarding the trade war - China just hit the US back, and you can see that the hit is not proportional (smaller than the US one). Before that, hits were proportional, but this couldn't last for long, the US can hit China worse strictly on trade balance than the reverse, so now it is hard for China to answer proportionally just with tariffs. It would be logical for China to try to keep up by moving beyond tariffs, but that's bad politically. So, you can see how the US position is actually not that weak.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...08d2b474ebac54

[Draco-Onis]

This would be happening one way or another regardless of which party was in power just by different means. The whole point of the TPP was to limit Chinese influence which i think was bad because it gave various corporations to much power but was needed to curtail Chinese influence. American corporations are responsible for the rise in the authoritarian Chinese government by wanting to exploit labor and keep prices low so they should bear the brunt of the damage to be honest but having our government wanting to do the bidding of these corporations is disgusting while they forget its people are rationing medical care.

TPP is not the same as a trade war and most politicians would not start a trade war with China after pissing off all their allies by slapping tariffs on them. Trade alliances is how you put pressure and get concessions out of the China, Trump also seems to be so dumb he doesn't understand that governments need to save face so his tweet storms are awful.

[Breccia]

most politicians would not start a trade war with China after pissing off all their allies by slapping tariffs on them.

This is really a bigger deal than it sounds.

You could make the argument that China has more to lose, because they sell more to us than we sell to them. That's valid in a nominal sense: the number of dollars is a larger number. It gets murkier when you bring in proportions. For example, if China and the US both sold 10% less to each other, the trade gap would fall from $500B to $450B. The rabid fanbase would cheer, pointing and barking like trained seals, "Look! The number went down! It is a smaller number! ARK ARK ARK!" while their farming and manufacturing friends stand in the unemployment line.

But that is where @Draco-Onis 's point comes back: China has other options. We don't.

We did, but Trump threatened them, too.

It is possible someone I have on ignore claims China would lose out politically by making a stronger move against the USA. If so, that'd be one of the wrongest things in a long chain of wrong things such a hypothetical person might say. Anyone with even the barest sense of context has been looking at China over the last ten years: their expansion, their tech advancement (stealing), cutting coal, their synthetic islands with military bases, the TPP and their move to Africa, South America, and that new railroad that run into EU. China has been making multiple aggressive moves on multiple fronts, and either they're trying to be the next super power or (sorry @Skroe ) they already are.

While China's moves could be seen as a full-court press against the US. And, well, it is. But China isn't putting all their eggs in one basket. They're putting many eggs in many baskets. And boy, are they making a lot of baskets. You'd be forgiven for thinking China celebrates Easter. In the mix is that they are buying friends. Friends that Trump is costing us -- world opinion of the US is critically low, even amongst our allies -- and won't win back with US taxpayer funded soybean drops. Charitable act or not, people who sell food to starving countries don't like people who just give them food. It might be the moral thing to do, but expect blowback regardless.

Russia is already dying. You can only live so long on rotten turnips, after all, and one could argue Putin attacked the US election with lies, collusion and spycraft because he had nothing left to throw at us. China is proving more and more that they do, and more importantly, are willing and able to take our role on the global stage. Nothing would benefit them more politically than, after the US unilaterally starts a trade war, forcing the US into concessions to end it, shaming us into submission.

Simply put, China can always buy soybeans from Brazil. We can't buy iPhones from Australia. Trump's tariffs are costing the US aluminium and steel from pretty much everywhere, but he did that before there was any way to make enough locally. There isn't. Everyone begged Trump to stop, even as he spewed lie after lie about China paying our tariffs. Nobody is begging China to stop fighting back. They want China to win. The world wants China to put Trump, and the US, in its place. And not only does China want to accomplish this, they've been training for this for a decade.

Possibly by drinking raw eggs.

[rda]

I read through the long post intrigued by "China has other options. We don't." and apparently this boils down to:

Simply put, China can always buy soybeans from Brazil. We can't buy iPhones from Australia.

Man, this isn't even scratching the surface, this is you reading your first shallow media pieces on the question. A year into the question you will probably get to what's actually going on as the events unfold and the media pieces will finally touch most of the aspects exaggerating and misinterpreting things piece-by-piece as they go.

It's China who is out of options. Primarily because when the rest of the West (as well as Japan, etc) has to take sides, they will side with the US. If it comes to that, that is (nearly certainly won't). The instrumental issue here is that China did cheat and did behave dishonestly. Eg, for IP, today they are stealing US IP. Guess whose IP they are going to be stealing when they start having difficulties reaching that in the US? Right, next in line are EU / others. And they all realize that. Same for several other questions.

Word of advice: stop stating things and change your sources.

[Breccia]

Can't wait for next week on the stock market

Not even lunch and 600 DOWn. Based purely on the last week, expect this to be the low and get 400 or so back.

[Azhran]

I read through the long post intrigued by "China has other options. We don't." and apparently this boils down to:



Man, this isn't even scratching the surface, this is you reading your first shallow media pieces on the question. A year into the question you will probably get to what's actually going on as the events unfold and the media pieces will finally touch most of the aspects exaggerating and misinterpreting things piece-by-piece as they go.

It's China who is out of options. Primarily because when the rest of the West (as well as Japan, etc) has to take sides, they will side with the US. If it comes to that, that is (nearly certainly won't). The instrumental issue here is that China did cheat and did behave dishonestly. Eg, for IP, today they are stealing US IP. Guess whose IP they are going to be stealing when they start having difficulties reaching that in the US? Right, next in line are EU / others. And they all realize that. Same for several other questions.

Word of advice: stop stating things and change your sources.

Thank you for sharing your keen insights. Really top notch analytical work.

[Kryctos]

Is it time for the market to get dropped and trampled by the bull yet?

[rda]

By the way, with all the current crying from the dems and media about Trump supposedly creating a disaster, you know what was the dems position and the media headlines before the trade war?

They were: Trump is a paper tiger who does not have the balls to protect our great country from China.

Example piece:

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...g-china-236915

Example quote:

"One of the few hopes we had with President Trump is that he’d finally stand up to China," Schumer told reporters. "But up to now, when it comes to China, he looks like a 98-pound weakling.”

That's Chuck Schumer, the Dem leader.

[Breccia]

Incidentally, when Trump was recently elected and ignored his own promise to do something about China on Day One, Schumer pointed out that Trump had saved zero jobs.

This analysis from Forbes shows that, fast forward to now, and Schumer was 100% right. Trump's tariffs are due to remove 500,000 or so jobs. That is the opposite of saving jobs.

Wow, Schumer was completely correct on that.

[rda]

Incidentally, when Trump was recently elected and ignored his own promise to do something about China on Day One, Schumer pointed out that Trump had saved zero jobs.

This analysis from Forbes shows that, fast forward to now, and Schumer was 100% right. Trump's tariffs are due to remove 500,000 or so jobs. That is the opposite of saving jobs.

Wow, Schumer was completely correct on that.

ROFL

You are taking a side shot while ignoring the main issue. I will spell it out, the main issue is that (a) China was and remains a problem, the trade war happened not because Trump is behaving irrationally, it happened due to real issues which were and remain big, and (b) the dems were deriding Trump for not taking a stand and after he took a stand, they are now deriding him for doing so.

If we look up the thread, various uninformed folks actually disputed (a) pretending that the war is just Trump being a baby. Same for (b), nobody bothered to remember.

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BTW, I am not sure why you linked a piece that is entirely centered on projections like "The tariffs already enacted will eliminate 94,303 full-time equivalent jobs, ..." while further data showed that jobs were actually added, not lost. ??? How projections "show" that Schumer was right while they don't match the data? Ah, well, never mind. I guess you saw the word "losses" and went with it.

[Independent voter]

Unemployment is the lowest it's been since 1964, that's 50 years ago.

The trade war and Brexit are raising hell with the stock market. This is just a temporary thing that will go away once the problem is resolved.

Economy is doing amazing.