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American Disruption

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111–120 of 210 posts

Re: American Disruption

#111

Surprised there isn't mention that a big part of the tariff strategy is to throw the equity markets into chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond. There was a panic last night because the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down, which is not supposed to happen. It would be truly disruptive if the whole game gets blown up by a lack of buyers for US debt.

[deleted]

Re: American Disruption

#112

Surprised there isn't mention that a big part of the tariff strategy is to throw the equity markets into chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond. There was a panic last night because the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down, which is not supposed to happen. It would be truly disruptive if the whole game gets blown up by a lack of buyers for US debt.

Pretty sure you're confusing the price of bonds with their yields, which are inversely correlated. Yields have gone up (to put it mildly).

Re: American Disruption

#113

Surprised there isn't mention that a big part of the tariff strategy is to throw the equity markets into chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond. There was a panic last night because the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down, which is not supposed to happen. It would be truly disruptive if the whole game gets blown up by a lack of buyers for US debt.

This doesnt make sense. When money moves out of stocks, it has to go somewhere. Typically, it moves to less-risky assets, like bonds. That makes their prices go up, and yields down.

Likewise, why would the tariff strategy be to drive down bond prices? Lower prices means receiving less for their issuance/paying more interest...

Youve got it all backwards friend

Re: American Disruption

#114
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. If you want to understand the tariffs today, just go read one of his many books. His goals are pretty simple: reindustriaize America No more free trade China is evil and the worlds enemy It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China.

> The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. He's also a complete and utter liar. I happened to come across him speaking on Fox News when he stated that "Canada has been taken over by Mexican cartels". [1] As a Canadian and as someone who isn't living in some bizarre alternate reality, I can assure you that Canada has not been taken over by cartels. The claim is ins…

Here another example of him lying:

It recently emerged a that he had been inventing quotes in all his books from a certain ‘Ron Vara’ a distinguished but entirely fictional economics professor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/navarro-ron-v...

Re: American Disruption

#115

Surprised there isn't mention that a big part of the tariff strategy is to throw the equity markets into chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond. There was a panic last night because the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down, which is not supposed to happen. It would be truly disruptive if the whole game gets blown up by a lack of buyers for US debt.

> a big part of the tariff strategy

You mean, a big part of one of the inconsistent explanations people are desperately theorizing, because they're too afraid of the simple answer... that there isn't any strategy at all?

[Edit: Or, to be more precise, no strategy which is both (A) sane and (B) designed for America rather than for specific individuals.]

> chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond

I assume this means "the US government will benefit by being able to borrow money more cheaply than before because so many people can't trust stocks". That explanation rests on a big fat false assumption that trust in the particular debtor issuing the bonds remains unchanged as more people want to lend them money.

Instead, economic trust in the US--built up over decades--is being actively firebombed into the dirt by the new Republican regime. This means the US government can easily end up in a far worse position than before, because creditors will demand higher interest-payments to offset the "holy shit your country might implode first" risk they're taking on.

Or, y'know, they'll take their money out of US stocks and then buy the bonds of some other government entirely...

Re: American Disruption

#116

Surprised there isn't mention that a big part of the tariff strategy is to throw the equity markets into chaos in an effort to drive down the price of the 10-year bond. There was a panic last night because the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down, which is not supposed to happen. It would be truly disruptive if the whole game gets blown up by a lack of buyers for US debt.

> the 10 year bond price started going up as stocks were trading down,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the abnormal thing happening was that treasury yields were going up, which meant that prices were going down (due to lack of buyers, as you said), right?

Re: American Disruption

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary architect of trumps tariff strategy in his first and second term is Peter Navarro. If you want to understand the tariffs today, just go read one of his many books. His goals are pretty simple: reindustriaize America No more free trade China is evil and the worlds enemy It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China.

> It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China Then why are we also slapping tariffs on Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Mexico, EU, RoW?

Don’t forget Laos!

Re: American Disruption

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be no surprise to anyone observing trump since he took office that the end goal was always to decouple from China Then why are we also slapping tariffs on Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Mexico, EU, RoW?

Don’t forget Laos!

And Lesotho, a country Trump had apparently never heard of.

Re: American Disruption

#119
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Seattle, it's actually about 50% cheaper to get a taxi from SeaTac to the city than to take a Lyft or Uber.

I'm curious as to why that is. A few months ago I took a taxi from the airport in Austin (because I had neglected to book my Uber/Lyft before I got to the rideshare area and there was a significant wait) and I vowed "never again". It was about 50% more than Uber/Lyft, and everything about the experience was worse in the ways taxis have always been worse - payment is much more of a pain in the ass, you don't know how…

> I'm curious as to why that is

Seattle has added some extra fees and pay requirements for drivers that drive up the cost of a ride share. In retaliation to these laws, ride share companies have also raised prices.

An Uber from my house to the SeaTac airport used to cost about $30 5 or 6 years ago. It's now around $100. A taxi is about $80 now. Paying for parking is cheaper now than either of those options.

Re: American Disruption

#120
post #25

Talking about the merits of these tariffs kind of misses the point. The person who wrote this article is very smart. I am sure they are smarter than I am. He has produced a pretty solid analysis of trade policy. But in articles like this people ascribe their own motivations and goals to the tariffs that aren't actually there. Buried in this article is the assumption that the motivation of tariffs and trade policy is…

Worse than projecting one's values onto a rationalization of the new tariffs is to simply take the administration's rhetoric at face value. That other countries are "taking advantage of us" is just a talking point. We have to look at how the tariffs fit historical conservative programs. Republicans have long wished to replace our progressive income taxation with a flat tax system, but that's simply not achievable, ev…

We've always had a flat tax in the form of printing new money -> inflation.
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