“Well, Mr. President, you promised us an economic boom and we’re all just a little confused and also concerned that –”
“Excuse me! Excuse me. These are boom times. Think of it: BOOM! All your sh-t’s gone.”
Donald Trump on Tuesday was scheduled to host the Business Roundtable at The White House, where Wall Street bankers and a handful of other people who give even less of a damn about Main Street than Trump does (assuming that’s possible) were invited to query the president on tariffs and other matters vexing the C-suite.
50 days into what’s best described as an insane-a-thon, US equities are beset, consumer confidence waylaid and most economic indicators suggestive of lost momentum.
Team Trump says this is a “transition” period for an economy addicted to government largesse. “Detox,” to use Scott Bessent’s language, could be painful. Withdrawal symptoms may include dramatic outlook cuts from major airlines, bad comp guides from retailers and 25% overnight electricity price hikes for consumers in states which import power from Ontario.
Trump and Bessent — who should definitely grow beards to match JD Vance and Howard Lutnick — will tell you this is for the better, but business leaders will be forgiven for harboring doubts. After all, this is the same administration acquisitively eyeing Canada, toying seriously with the idea of quitting NATO and which deputized Elon Musk to fire as many federal employees as possible under the banner of a cost-cutting initiative named for a meme coin.
The figure below shows the March results of a poll conducted by Chief Executive magazine. A forward-looking measure of expected business conditions, as derived from C-suite survey responses, fell off the map this month.
If you’re not familiar with the survey, it’s pretty simple. Executives are asked to rate business conditions, both current and forward-looking, on a scale of 1 to 10.
The drop off in the C-suite’s subjective assessment of current conditions (not shown) was sharp: From 6.3 to 5, which counted as the worst reading since early 2020, when the global economy was shuttered for a plague. But the plunge illustrated above was even more pronounced, and at 5, the forward-looking gauge is the lowest since 2012.
Nearly half of those polled said they expect a recession — or at least a material slowdown — over the next six months. As Melanie Nolen, editorializing around the results noted, “the Trump administration’s gyrating tariff threats against Mexico and Canada are the most commonly cited reason for declining optimism,” but executives also fretted about “rising geopolitical uncertainty, sweeping government layoffs and overall unpredictability for what comes next.”
You gotta love that latter bit: “Overall unpredictability for what comes next.”
On Tuesday, the NFIB’s gauge of small business optimism managed to print above the long-term average again, but it missed estimates all the same and Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg conceded that “uncertainty is high and rising on Main Street, and for many reasons.”
Hopefully, Trump got enough sleep to be sharp for his business leader pow wow. He was up at 15 past midnight Tuesday, regaling the faithful on TruthSocial, where he accused “radical lunatics” of “illegally and collusively boycott[ing] Tesla.”
Apparently, it’s illegal not to buy a Tesla now. And even though Trump, thanks to a beholden Supreme Court, has broad immunity for any crimes committed in the course of his presidential duties, he’s going to “buy a brand new Tesla” today as a “show of confidence and support” for Musk, “a truly great American.”
What’s next? Will Trump open a GoFundMe campaign to “keep Elon rich”? He’s been going broke in a (not so) slow motion. A couple more months in politics should do it.
“Insane-o-thon” captures it all brilliantly.
Hopefully we are on the verge of an inextinguishable lithium fire like no one has ever seen, or else we should prepare ourselves for Trump to bring back electricity.
From the Daily Beast,
“While investors watched in horror as the stock market plunged on Monday as a result of President Donald Trump’s sprawling trade wars, he was busy reposting praise for his administration on Truth Social.
“The president posted over a hundred times between noon and 6 p.m. on Monday while the Nasdaq fell 4 percent, marking its worst day since 2022. The S&P 500 dropped almost 3 percent.
[…]
“The hashtag “#stockmarketcrash” trended on Musk’s own social media platform, X, as the public reacted to the market’s nosedive.
“Trump was also online, making 25 posts on Truth Social in the span of six minutes just before noon. He took a break and returned in the late afternoon to make over a hundred more posts.”
Original article with top-shelf headline in the URL: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-goes-on-insane-truth-social-posting-spree-as-stock-market-freefalls/
The man is prolific. Imagine writing 1000 tweets, buying a tesla, raising steel and aluminum tariffs to 50% and still having the energy to lower them back to 25% all in one day. The Trumpinator is on fire, oh wait a minute, that’s the economy imploding.
I couldn’t help myself- I burst out laughing at this picture. Hilarious, frightening and psychotic- all conveyed in this fantastic visual.
So much “meaty” material… and you continue to deliver at the highest level, surpassing all expectations (which are already pretty high- because you have spoiled us). Thanks, H.
In a weird way, it made me think of one of my favorite Big Bang Theory episodes- when Amy and Howard are riding in the car (Howard is behind the wheel) and singing Neil Diamond songs.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=big+bang+theory+episode+singing+in+the+car&t=iphone&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYNljFtVKL7E
Trump absolutely is not buying a “brand new Tesla”. (Does he even know their model names? I’m guessing not)
The man can’t even drive a car and thinks you have to show ID to buy groceries. But his lie reversed the Tesla bleeding, for now.
Unfortunately, I think the title has the wrong -ession, this is likely the start of a multi decade depression.
Good news is after that things will get better!!!