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With Apologies To Clown Shows…
Donald Trump on Monday threatened an incremental 50% tariff on China starting immediately if Beijing
Bessent is driving this and I don’t think its clownish
No, Bessent is not driving it. And it’s definitively clownish, as in this will go down as one of the most spectacularly disastrous policy rollouts in modern history, far eclipsing the Liz Truss boondoggle in that regard.
The thing that’s “great” about developments like this one (and the Truss debacle) is that it forces people to reckon with the reality of morons — morons like Trump and Truss.
Of course, not everyone’s up for that psychological challenge. Some people will persist in their cognitive dissonance and even broadcast their own ruinous obdurance to the rest of humanity via comments in public forums.
Bruce, I am curious what is supporting your view of this.
It sure seems like a circus to me. We have all the animals performing in front of the news media trying to propogate so many different narratives about the objectives of the tariffs that it’s become a pick-your-own-adventure story. You can, for example, choose to believe tariffs are about ‘leveling the playing field’, they are a way to raise revenue, they are a negotiating tactic, they are a way to onshore manufacturing, they are a way to transfer wealth from Wall Stree to mainstreet, or any combination thereof. The absence of a consistent, coherent narrative is a tell: either there’s no real justification at all, or the true rationale is so farcical it can’t be stated publicly.
Nothing is supporting Bruce’s view, other than perhaps his vote in November. This is a person who asked, last week, “Why is Recession a bad thing?”
I mean, you can make a case for anything if you try hard enough. Food poisoning, for example, is a good way to lose some weight real fast and clean our your system. But I’m not sure it makes sense to ask, “Why is food poisoning a bad thing?”
Bruce seems like the kind of guy who’s gonna go down with the ship if it is indeed going down. And that’s the prerogative of such people. But I’m not going to spare anyone’s delicate feelings on this, because this administration, with all of their openly nefarious bullshit — from the USAID cuts to the kidnappings (and yes, when you snatch up a legal US resident off the streets and deport them against a judge’s orders, that’s kidnapping) to the extortion of America’s higher education system to the abandonment of our allies in Europe to the thinly-veiled threats of physical violence against our Canadian neighbors to now a stock crash and a threat to torpedo the entire global economy — it’s unconscionable, indefensible and it’s killing people, in some cases (the USAID example) literally.
Inflation won’t ease until retail investors capitulate. There were already signs of stagflation before the entire tariff discussion began. Bessent clearly believes that stocks need to crash and treasuries need to surge as deflationary forces take hold. Just watch his recent interview with Tucker.
For investors like you, the stock market may still offer potential, but not for the bottom 50%. A recession, in this context, could actually be beneficial. Relying on a Fed or Trump “put” won’t fix the core structural problems.
Delaying action won’t help. Take the hard medicine now. That’s what the government will be forced to do, like it or not. Tariffs may eventually lead to better trade deals for the U.S., but only after deflation. Then, there could be room for rate cuts and even another round of tax cuts.
Bruce: I was willing to give you the benefit of justifying your positions but after listening to you I am reminded of a quote from the movie Billy Madison:
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul
“Watch his interview with Tucker”? No thanks, Bruce.
And see, this what I’m talking about. The Treasury Secretary shouldn’t be doing interviews with Tucker Carlson, a man who cozies up to dictators and who, perhaps more than any other American, is responsible for the dissolution of the country’s social fabric.
If you really believe, Bruce, that Bessent, Donald Trump and Howard Lutnick care about everyday Americans, you probably also bought one of Trump’s co-branded, Lee Greenwood-endorsed, $60 Bibles. Or one of his $99 NFTs.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news: But you’ve been duped, my friend. You’ve pretty clearly bought the bullsh-t, and when it goes wrong, they’re not going to issue you a refund. You’re just going to have to look yourself in the mirror and say “I was an idiot.”
Rate cuts or QE later will require a quick short deflationary pain now. Are you all calling SPX shedding 15% a crash? Treasury yields are what they are looking at.
https://x.com/jam_croissant/status/1896424533319426233
Bruce, I don’t care what some random “X” account has to say, even if that account seems to agree that the overarching goal is the upward transfer of wealth. Not when it comes to imparting 4-, 5- and 6D chess to a legendary idiot, in Trump. Jesus Christ, are you that dense, Bruce? Can you really not see that these guys — Trump and crew — have no plan? You really buy this bullsh-t that they have a strategy? After everything you’ve just seen, you buy that? You think that part of their plan was to force a hard-stop, Wile E. Coyote US recession, a stock crash and maybe even a depression, with a “d,” to get — checks notes — 75bps (LOL) on the 10Y? Get outta here with this. Seriously, don’t post this bullsh-t here anymore. “This is a house of learned doctors.”
Oh, and incidentally, that “X” thread you posted (where an ostensible adult is writing in emojis) is just a regurgitated version of the sell-side’s reverse-engineered explanation for something they didn’t predict. That narrative started to pick up adherents once it because apparent that a lot of sell-siders were off base. When things started to look shaky for US stocks and the economy, they picked up on this Bessent story which basically says, “Oh, this isn’t chaos, this is on purpose, and here are the steps and phases.” This “X” account you cited has appended a nod to the administration’s underhanded attempt to channel even more money to the wealthiest Americans and corporates, which is nice of him, but you don’t need all that laughably circuitous logic to get there — all you need to know is that they’re centimillionaires and billionaires and that they’re Republicans. Of course they’re going to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Ooo, one more thing Bruce: Did you check the 10Y today? If not, don’t.
Nooooooo!!! Not the bonds!!! —> https://i0.wp.com/heisenbergreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/10YrApr72025.png?ssl=1
More on the bonds: https://heisenbergreport.com/2025/04/07/what-just-happened-to-us-treasurys/
Love it when H is fired up!
Trump has no morals, no principles, and no real semblance of a brain. The only thing he has is a primal desire for anything that makes him look like he’s has power. He’s a caveman perpetually on the prowl for anything that looks like a club. And that pretty much sums up “his plan”. Find a club, use it, then puff his chest out and howl redfaced obnoxious incomprehesible gibberish to the fucking world.
The losses this morning and still now are staggering. I still have not heard a peep of serious resistance though, against Trump’s plan to implement the extra 50%.
I trust your judgement, I really really do, but I’m really not so sure we’re not going to have >100% tariffs on China later this week.
Pretty soon yield on MMFs will be lower than inflation, and there will be nowhere to hide at all. How do you deploy reserves in this hot mess? You don’t? Junk spread has gone vertical. Chaos a daily fact.
Immersed as we are in finance and the markets in particular, I think we often miss the broader “main street” picture. Trump was not elected mainly as a trade warrior, even though tariffs are the one issue he has maintained since the 1980s.
Exit polling pointed at inflation alongside immigration and crime as larger concerns. Through those prisms he HAS done well so far. The base has not had any reason to question the president. This may be why GOP reps have mostly remained so quiet.
Excuse me. With respect, sir, how has the Lord of the Tiny Hands done well on anything? He’s only been in office about two and a half months. Musk stopped mass deportations after a week or two. No current crime data to show any change. What he has accomplished is to wreck the retirement plans of millions of voters. GOP reps have not all been quiet. Grassley may be old but he is still a force. He can move others. The fact that so many have remained quiet is that his henchman have been threatening them and their families with oblivion.
Zero immigrants crossing the border. That is HUGE for many voters since, in their minds, it has been the driver of a surge in crime, factual or not.
Oh, I forgot to mention his other promise kept: DEI has been stopped, reversed and removed from history. Suddenly ads for P&G products no longer exclusively feature black faces, though I noticed that the company’s ads on Fox stations had already been whitewashed a few weeks ago. For a number of people I know, that was an overriding issue and they are delighted to see this.
Of course, there is nothing racial about any of this, right?
Reading Bruce’s comments as well as many more on investing.com makes it sickeningly but abundantly clear that there are enough people in the US who so deeply bought into the ‘own the libs’ culture wars that they are willing to let the whole damn country burn down as long as it seems like it’s hurting the right people.
Exactly what horrible things drove this level of embedded hatred besides ingesting daily doses of propaganda is beyond me. In two different administrations, separated by 4 years of economic prosperity, Trump has presided over globe-wrecking catastrophies. The Libs aren’t the problem, it’s the belief that anything bad is worth it as long as my perceived enemy is hurt from the Right that is.
Have fun with the smoldering ashes of America, hey as long as it owns the libs right?
“smoldering ashes” – haha- what? Are we in a Depression? There is no QE and you all feel like its a crash and ashes?
Listen- US has leverage. Better trade deals, lower yields and lower rates will be coming. But not w/o some much needed pain and cleanup. Trade it accordingly. Stop complaining. Stocks are meant to be risky
Bruce, you’re an idiot. You’ve fallen hook, line and sinker for the narrative of a man whose entire life is just one, long-running con. Even his hair and the color of his face is a con. This is a guy who dedicated his life to being a grifter. He’s a professional grifter. That’s your guy? Seriously?
It’s not about the stocks, Bruce. As I’ve tried to make clear over the years, this is an adopted hobby of mine. Wall Street isn’t, wasn’t and never will be my natural habitat. I don’t give a single damn about the stocks, if I’m honest. They can go to infinity or they go to nothing, and the same’s true of the bonds and all the rest of it. If it all comes crashing down tomorrow, I’ll pawn a couple of watches, meet up with a couple of old friends out of state and be right back up half-a-million. I don’t need this casino like the rest of you folks. (Stay tuned for the next Monthly Letter. There’s a great plug!)
So, the point isn’t the stocks. The point is that the country — our country, the country the free world depends on — is in the hands of a convicted felon who was found liable for sexual abuse, and who has more bankruptcies than digits on his right hand. He’s a con man. And he’s also a traitor who tried to overthrow our system of governance, and who admires, as a child would a rock star, men like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban.
As the commenter above was trying to convey to you, you’re pretty clearly someone (and you’re hardly alone, half the country thinks this way) who thinks you’re proving something to the rest of us by supporting a man bent on ending American democracy, a project millions of people died to establish, refine, improve and preserve. And you’re right: You are proving something to the rest of us. It’s just not what you think you’re proving.
It strikes me that we are not dealing with a monolith here. Maybe I’m wrong (for the first time since I last thought I was wrong) but it sure looks like is a Trump/Navarro/Lutnick/Bannon/Miller side and a Vance/Bessent/Miran (Thiele/Project 2025) faction in the Whitehouse. Musk looks to have been caught between them, as when Bessent was picked over Lutnick for the Treasury secretary post, his H-B1 tussle with Bannon and his recent bout with Navarro.
It’s like the old sport of Kremlinology, if any of you fellow geezers remember that.
Anyway, I don’t think it’s wise to somehow assume that any of them, especially on the Bessent side, are speaking for “the administration” rather than as a voice of one faction there.
There are two types of Trump supporters: Opportunists and True Believers, and you’ve nailed down the two camps perfectly. Musk is definitely the odd-man out, because while his profile has the classic makings of an Opportunist, much of his behavior smacks of True Believer (endorsing the AfD as just one example).
Then there’s Marco Rubio. I laugh every time I see his face these days. He’s pure Opportunist, dreaming of his next presidential run, but he just looks like he wants to kill himself every time he has to publicly defend another asinine action by his boss.
Yeah, spot on about Little Marco. He does look uncomfortable since the Zelensky broadcast to the world. He’s in a box. It’s too early to get lasting cred points for resigning, but he must be concerned that staying on board might not be a good strategy either?
Thanks to both you guys! I get it now. I agree…it will be fun to watch it unfold with this perspective…
Here’s some Kremlin watching for you. It looks like a friend of Musk is wearing out his welcome with DJT? The Thiele faction would love to see him gone ….
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/frustrated-trump-confused-why-emotional-cabinet-member-always-in-white-house-report/ar-AA1Cu8PH?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhoverent&cvid=74ed1896518a4f199556bb67e0ca4d62&ei=12
True Believers like Bruce need to put down their Kool Aid, ask Barron to help them shut down their laptops, and head out into the real world for a spell. Calling what Trump is doing “medicine” is sadly ironic, since actual medicine these days is a similarly uncertain morass of cost uncertainty, side effects, and frivolous boners, both literal and figurative.
But this Administration that can manage to huckster their way into finally fair trade overlooks a grade school standardized test staple — fewer people with less money (Canada, Mexico, Lesotho) are probably going to buy less, on imbalance, than more people with more money (the U.S.). It’s not a difficult concept. There is no fair or loss if he’s going to focus solely on nominal surpluses and deficits.
I mean we currently make Vietnamese catfish jump through a lot of hoops to keep it from being more economic, starting with not being allowed to call their catfish catfish. Meanwhile, real American catfish is being flash frozen and air freighted to Vietnam where it is thawed, fileted, re-frozen and re-freighted back to the US, where it is sold either still frozen or thawed from frozen. Far more American fish have traveled to Vietnam than American people.