“The real pain for the U.S. doesn’t come just from retaliatory tariffs. It comes if the rest of the world starts quietly rebalancing away from America. “
That rebalancing includes the degradation of science and learning. The smartest teachers, scientists, researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs will be leaving in droves, and the best and brightest from around the world will choose anyplace but America. 😢
When will Wall Street finally get the memo, or do they not ultimately care, one way or the other? It seems they believe tax cuts are better than market growth; until it’s not.
That’s when all hell will break loose. Unfortunately, for most 401k holders and retail investors, the equity markets are lagging indicators. And they will ultimately be the ones left without a chair, when the music finally stops. IMHO…:)
True, so true. And there's one thing that's underestimated, with all the cuts on University and research intensive agency funding. Where will all those scientists go, if not to Europe and Asia?
Whereas the US attracted the brains of the world for decades, Hippo Don is causing a literal brain drain from the US...
NATO as an institution might well be silent about it, given the stance of the NATO Secretary General towards the US.
But what NATO’s mutual defence clause (article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty) says is in my reading independent of whether the attacker is a NATO member country and independent of any political processes within NATO. If Trump tries to take Greenland by means of an armed attack, all NATO countries are treaty-bound to treat that as an attack against their country. As an assumption in this scenario is that the US is under a Trumpist government, the US would ignore this like they’re ignoring various other treaty obligations. For the other NATO countries, it would be much harder to pretend that NATO’s mutual defence clause doesn’t apply, because in doing so, they would destroy much of the existing deterrence against attacks from e.g. Russia.
I'm hearing that Big Business leaders are quietly talking among themselves about the tariffs and trade war. They aren't happy at all. Lots of financial businesses are, too. They know what's likely to happen, even if the Misadministration doesn't want to admit it.
I agree with Robert. I'm working with my financial advisor to diversify even more than we already have. Diversifying into companies that produce necessities seems wise, though I'm no financial advisor. We're retired and expect our SS to become very erratic, if it comes at all. With all the government financial departments being hollowed out and put under the Executive branch (They're planning to put the FDIC, CFPB- if they don't succeed in eliminating it, etc.), we're looking at the chance of a full blown depression, IMHO. If that happens, all bets are off.
You correctly point the finger of shame at the many syncophants for enabling the “leadership” to perform economic/security suicide of our country. I include all right-wing and now legacy media in that category for spreading his narrative and normalizing the unthinkable.
Well, at last the lights are shining in the dark! In the UK/EU we knew this would happen: tariffs would HURT Americans as consumers and in businesses.
The supply chain would just do something else. Go somewhere else.
Yes, it would impact our economy in some ways but not as much as was expected.
The great news is that a new chain of economic interdependence has emerged: We can turn to Europe despite the legacy of Brexit and, the Asian market is good too.
It will draw us closer to our near neighbours which will be a good thing indeed.
TPerhaps some kind of big favour has just come our way…thank you Mr Trump!
We don’t need sycophancy or self delusion. Or confusion and much more.
Shankar. I agree. Krasnov has set the US to be a declining autocracy. There are no rich autocracies of the size of the US. Don’t exist. That has implications for the US Dollar, debt, bonds, stocks, and world growth.
It seemed silly that 350 million in the US had a stock market that was 50% of the world’s value. Not sustainable. Let riches flow to the other 7.7 billion people. Mr. Haque lays out the case why America’s turn to autocracy is bad.
Something more to keep me cheerful. These Republicans are unbelievable! Short term gain for themselves at the expense of the country and everyone in it. I can’t help but hate their leadership. And half of them are billionaires many times over—but maybe not for long?
There are several problems with the idea that the billionaires might share the pain that they’re causing.
First of all, even if some of them might lose a significant percentage of their wealth, why would they care? Their lifestyle would not be adversely impacted. And at least some of these billionaires have a grievance that they care about significantly, in that many people still refuse to give them the honour and adoration that they think they deserve. Fixing this grievance might in their view well be worth a significant price tag. And then there are those who truly desire to be part of the ruling cabal of a fascist mafia state, whether for reasons of greed (in such a state, those who have enough political power can use that power for financial gain) or for reasons of truly preferring fascism to democracy.
Even if it doesn’t come to that, let’s not forget that for the rich, it’s much easier to weather economic and financial storms with relatively small losses than for you and me: They can relatively easily move much of their capital to companies which are much less affected than the economy as a whole — including companies in other countries. Also, they can profit from the lawlessness by hiding more of their income from taxpaying obligations.
Not sure they would fare that well if the country were at war or in significant economic distress. Depends on what underpins their fortunes. The tariffs will hurt some of them at least so they notice—not so they hurt.
“The real pain for the U.S. doesn’t come just from retaliatory tariffs. It comes if the rest of the world starts quietly rebalancing away from America. “
That rebalancing includes the degradation of science and learning. The smartest teachers, scientists, researchers, inventors, entrepreneurs will be leaving in droves, and the best and brightest from around the world will choose anyplace but America. 😢
Example en pointe: one of Canada’s top heart surgeons was prepared to move to California.
No longer.
In some ways Trump has been a blessing for Canada.
Well done Shankar, another great newsletter.
When will Wall Street finally get the memo, or do they not ultimately care, one way or the other? It seems they believe tax cuts are better than market growth; until it’s not.
That’s when all hell will break loose. Unfortunately, for most 401k holders and retail investors, the equity markets are lagging indicators. And they will ultimately be the ones left without a chair, when the music finally stops. IMHO…:)
True, so true. And there's one thing that's underestimated, with all the cuts on University and research intensive agency funding. Where will all those scientists go, if not to Europe and Asia?
Whereas the US attracted the brains of the world for decades, Hippo Don is causing a literal brain drain from the US...
But, at least we'll have Greenland. Maybe.
Not if NATO has anything to say about it. And they will.
NATO as an institution might well be silent about it, given the stance of the NATO Secretary General towards the US.
But what NATO’s mutual defence clause (article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty) says is in my reading independent of whether the attacker is a NATO member country and independent of any political processes within NATO. If Trump tries to take Greenland by means of an armed attack, all NATO countries are treaty-bound to treat that as an attack against their country. As an assumption in this scenario is that the US is under a Trumpist government, the US would ignore this like they’re ignoring various other treaty obligations. For the other NATO countries, it would be much harder to pretend that NATO’s mutual defence clause doesn’t apply, because in doing so, they would destroy much of the existing deterrence against attacks from e.g. Russia.
I'm hearing that Big Business leaders are quietly talking among themselves about the tariffs and trade war. They aren't happy at all. Lots of financial businesses are, too. They know what's likely to happen, even if the Misadministration doesn't want to admit it.
I agree with Robert. I'm working with my financial advisor to diversify even more than we already have. Diversifying into companies that produce necessities seems wise, though I'm no financial advisor. We're retired and expect our SS to become very erratic, if it comes at all. With all the government financial departments being hollowed out and put under the Executive branch (They're planning to put the FDIC, CFPB- if they don't succeed in eliminating it, etc.), we're looking at the chance of a full blown depression, IMHO. If that happens, all bets are off.
You correctly point the finger of shame at the many syncophants for enabling the “leadership” to perform economic/security suicide of our country. I include all right-wing and now legacy media in that category for spreading his narrative and normalizing the unthinkable.
Well, at last the lights are shining in the dark! In the UK/EU we knew this would happen: tariffs would HURT Americans as consumers and in businesses.
The supply chain would just do something else. Go somewhere else.
Yes, it would impact our economy in some ways but not as much as was expected.
The great news is that a new chain of economic interdependence has emerged: We can turn to Europe despite the legacy of Brexit and, the Asian market is good too.
It will draw us closer to our near neighbours which will be a good thing indeed.
TPerhaps some kind of big favour has just come our way…thank you Mr Trump!
We don’t need sycophancy or self delusion. Or confusion and much more.
Are you also looking to increase the weight in your investment portfolio of companies based in countries that have a sane government?
Shankar. I agree. Krasnov has set the US to be a declining autocracy. There are no rich autocracies of the size of the US. Don’t exist. That has implications for the US Dollar, debt, bonds, stocks, and world growth.
It seemed silly that 350 million in the US had a stock market that was 50% of the world’s value. Not sustainable. Let riches flow to the other 7.7 billion people. Mr. Haque lays out the case why America’s turn to autocracy is bad.
https://open.substack.com/pub/umairhaque/p/how-to-think-about-your-money-and
the way this malignant adminastration is going i would not like to be retired or heading for retirement in the us
Something more to keep me cheerful. These Republicans are unbelievable! Short term gain for themselves at the expense of the country and everyone in it. I can’t help but hate their leadership. And half of them are billionaires many times over—but maybe not for long?
There are several problems with the idea that the billionaires might share the pain that they’re causing.
First of all, even if some of them might lose a significant percentage of their wealth, why would they care? Their lifestyle would not be adversely impacted. And at least some of these billionaires have a grievance that they care about significantly, in that many people still refuse to give them the honour and adoration that they think they deserve. Fixing this grievance might in their view well be worth a significant price tag. And then there are those who truly desire to be part of the ruling cabal of a fascist mafia state, whether for reasons of greed (in such a state, those who have enough political power can use that power for financial gain) or for reasons of truly preferring fascism to democracy.
Even if it doesn’t come to that, let’s not forget that for the rich, it’s much easier to weather economic and financial storms with relatively small losses than for you and me: They can relatively easily move much of their capital to companies which are much less affected than the economy as a whole — including companies in other countries. Also, they can profit from the lawlessness by hiding more of their income from taxpaying obligations.
Not sure they would fare that well if the country were at war or in significant economic distress. Depends on what underpins their fortunes. The tariffs will hurt some of them at least so they notice—not so they hurt.
You lose integrity. Quickly.
Then you lose the business relationships where the other party has and values integrity and predictability.
Other business relationships deteriorate more slowly. But they’re less valuable in the first place.