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Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

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Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#161

Post by gs17 »

stefan_ wrote: post #145
iamtheworstdev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's intentional. Anyone thinking otherwise hasn't been listening to Treasury Sec Bissent talk these last two months. The goal to lower prices is to "increase supply and lower demand," and yes that's a direct quote. You don't lower demand by asking people to stop buying things. You lower demand by reducing people's ability to buy things.

The same people also say "tariffs are going to bring us so much money" and "we are going to call it the External Revenue Service". So maybe don't read rationality into clueless vibe statements.

> we are going to call it the External Revenue Service

To be fair to them (even if they're likely unaware), that was effectively a thing back in the 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Revenue_Cutter_S...

> The federal government desperately needed revenue, and determined to raise it chiefly from tariffs on imports. Strong enforcement of tariff laws could blunt rampant smuggling. Urged on by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the United States Congress on 4 August 1790 established the Revenue-Marine, later renamed the Revenue Cutter Service by act of 31 July 1894 (28 Stat. 171)

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#162

Post by gadders »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #139
wahern wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a curious dance. About 5 years ago the headline was, "President Donald Trump has signed a law that will impose sanctions on any firm that helps Russia's state-owned gas company, Gazprom, finish [Nord Stream 2]." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50875935 Of course, Trump isn't the only one to do an about-face. In 2019, Germany supported Nord Stream 2, but now opposes Russian gas imports.

It isn't a curious dance. The story that the parent is referring to, so far, hasn't actually been attributed to anyone in the govt. A US-based consortium is trying to get it reopened, the FT weren't able to say who this person met with, one of the people thought to be involved (a German) denied meeting with anyone, and there is no actual evidence of anyone in the government saying they are working on this...it is jus…

And Germany and other European countries, despite all their tough talk, are spending more on Russian gas than they are on aid to Ukraine:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more...

"EU member states bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), despite the efforts under way to kick the continent’s addiction to the fuels that fund Vladimir Putin’s war chest.

The amount is one-sixth greater than the €18.7bn the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024, according to a tracker from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)."

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#163

Post by AnimalMuppet »

idle_zealot wrote: post #25
Trasmatta wrote: post #3

Remember, this is the president that won largely because of people's dissatisfaction with inflation, and his promises to "fix" the economy. Instead, he's decided to wage a pointless trade war that nobody asked for, and came out yesterday essentially saying he's totally okay with a recession coming out of it. The only thing more absurd is the fact that some people didn't see this coming. He signalled everything that h…

This analysis is lacking. People didn't vote for Trump because they analyzed his proposed economic policies and decided they would improve their situation. Almost nobody votes like that. There's general financial anxiety in the US, and he promised to fix it. What methods he proposed using are almost irrelevant, it's the rhetoric around them that sways voters. The narrative is now one of temporary hardship to excise t…

> The narrative is now one of temporary hardship to excise the supposed rot of the system that is the root cause of the aforementioned anxiety.

OK.

> The only way to sway general support away from this self-destructive administration is to offer another path towards alleviating the problems that voters face in their lives. The time when you could run on promises of competent administration alone has passed.

Disagree. Another three years of this and "temporary hardship" will be exposed as wishful thinking. People will want actual competence.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#164

Post by CogitoCogito »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #102
touwer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true and you know it

I am not sure why people need to believe that no-one can disagree with their closely-held political views. The market is overvalued, it has been overvalued for a long time. It is not possible for this to continue forever, the market going down is not a sign that the world is ending. When the market went up under Trump, the same media said it had nothing to do with him...this isn't a real point of view, it is emotiona…

> you can't complain about the government spending $1m on a packet of nails

Has the government spent a million dollars on a packet of nails?

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#165

Post by rayiner »

gadders wrote: post #156
rayiner wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. It’s a recent shift. Historically, “technologists” were skeptical of the supposed knowledge of “experts.” When Linus built Linux, the “experts”—the guys with PhDs—said the future was microkernels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb.…

I mean in theory you could maybe argue that free trade economically makes the the country as a whole better off, but it could still be worse off strategically (EG by not being able to produce weapons or the necessary components to defend itself). It's also pretty clear that any economic benefits that there were, didn't benefit all of society equally,

I strongly suspect that free trade is good for the economy as a whole in the short to medium term, though has a negative effect on distribution (disproportionately benefitting those whose jobs can’t be easily outsourced). But in the long term it may destroy a country’s competitiveness by vitiating any comparative advantage.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#166

Post by Aunche »

andrewla wrote: post #135
voidhorse wrote: post #7

This administration is either intentionally performing market manipulation or is simply incompetent. Either way, we all lose. Hope the general populous is happy with their choice, lol.

Is there a specific aspect of the administration's policies which you believe are causing this? Candidates would include "actual impact of tariffs enacted" or "uncertainty about future tariffs" or the same things but with "geopolitical decisions" instead of tariffs. Or similarly "fiscal solvency" or "profile of government spending" etc. It's all well and good to make untestable post facto explanations based on vibes…

Tariff may be worse for the economy, but threatening tariffs as a "negotiating tactic" with Canada and Mexico is just plain stupid. Unless if they have insider information, businesses simply have no idea how to operate. For example, it would take years to build a factory, and they don't want to sink hundreds of millions in a factory in the US if tariffs don't actually go through or vice versa.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#167

Post by betaby »

rayiner wrote: post #157
betaby wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> definancialize the economy Not sure what does it mean in the context of the economy in general.

The point is to change the incentives to favor building things in the U.S. rather than increasing profits by building things overseas. Consider what high tariffs would do, for example, to Apple. Since Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers, and I’d argue in the long run it hurts innovation. But imagine if Apple…

> Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers

Agree, and that's kind of obvious.

> we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country

Not sure. Even less sure how instantaneous and very tariffs can help with that. Also it's not clear how that less of the financealisation.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#168

Post by rayiner »

atypeoferror wrote: post #160
paxys wrote: post #49

The standard move is to hunker down for the next 4 years, keep buying low, and wait for Democrats to come back and fix things in their next term. The same cycle has repeated what, 5 times in the last 30 years?

To be fair, the sub-prime lending crisis had its roots firmly in Clinton-era repeal of Glass-Steagal, so it’s not all so easy. No particular love for the Republican Party, but it’s a problem created by the Democrats, which they then patched with the inferior Frank-Dodd. Plenty of stupidity to go around, I would say.

Glass-Steagal was repealed by a GOP Congress. And the 2009 bailouts were Obama’s implementation of a plan devised by the Bush administration.

That said in economic and trade policy there’s not much difference between Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama. All support free movement of goods and labor. The only difference was in how big of a welfare state to have to mitigate the negative effects.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#169

Post by RealityVoid »

mempko wrote: post #18
voidhorse wrote: post #7

This administration is either intentionally performing market manipulation or is simply incompetent. Either way, we all lose. Hope the general populous is happy with their choice, lol.

It's simple incompetence. The whole lot are economically illiterate. Musk is out there talking about the US going bankrupt. Trump is saying other countries will pay for the tariffs. It's mind numbing. This is why you can't have business people running a country. A country is not like a business or a household.

There is no way they are this dumb. Musk especially, he's not some 1 in a lifetime genius, but he's no dummy either. There is no way he does not understand that what he is doing will have severe negative ramifications.

Re: Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown

#170

Post by rayiner »

betaby wrote: post #167
rayiner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is to change the incentives to favor building things in the U.S. rather than increasing profits by building things overseas. Consider what high tariffs would do, for example, to Apple. Since Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers, and I’d argue in the long run it hurts innovation. But imagine if Apple…

> Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers Agree, and that's kind of obvious. > we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country Not sure. Even less sure how instantaneous and very tariffs can help with that. Also it's not clear how that less of the financealisation.

This comment struck me as interesting re: financialization. https://x.com/ces921/status/1886037535283143162
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