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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

#201

Post by gadders »

wahern wrote: post #178
gadders wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's down from 112bn in 2019[1]. That's a huge drop in just a couple of years. Other than optics, I don't see the relevance to simplistic nominal comparisons with Ukraine aid. [1] 68bn in 2020 and 123bn 2021, but 2019 is better baseline given COVID.

I think it undermines their moral arguments when they are still buying gas off their "enemy".

It's not optics, it's hypocrisy.

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

#202

Post by vkou »

gs17 wrote: post #175
vkou wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harris also promised to fix it, and had an actual plan for addressing housing, education, medical costs, and prices in general, but we are all now pretending like none of that was a part of her campaign. Anyways, it's telling that everyone who was anxious over $3.50/dozen eggs in November is deathly silent over what's been happening in the past few weeks. All of a sudden, all of those people are now in the 'we have t…

> Milk's $11/gallon at my grocery You should shop somewhere else, unless you're in Hawaii or something. That's not a normal price for most of the country.

$5.50 for half a gallon of lactaid at my local QFC. ($5 for it at the Safeway that I'd spend another 25 minutes getting to and back from) https://imgur.com/9rpmfr2

All the sub-$5.50 options were sold out when I went last week. The gallon jugs only hit a good price point at 'buy five'.

I suppose I could move to some flyover shithole where milk is cheaper and I'd get paid one third as much, and my wife would be denied medical care by a government small enough to fit in her reproductive system, but I'm not sure that would be as big a win as one would think.

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

#203

Post by gadders »

iAMkenough wrote: post #181
gadders wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada imposed tariffs on China last year [1]. Is that incompetence as well? [1] https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2024/08/can...

Canada imposed targeted tarrifs on certain Chinese products, increasing their cost for Candadian consumers to level the playing field. China didn't pay Canada a dime. The United States on the other hand is planning a blanket tariff with certain carveouts, and the current administration seems to believe it will be foreign countries paying the United States as a result. When in reality, it will be American consumers an…

The tariffs are for different purposes.

Canada's tariffs were to prop up their automotive industry. America's tariffs are to encourage nations to so more to stop importing illegal drugs into the US.

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

#204

Post by rayiner »

mullingitover wrote: post #173
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…

> That doesn’t help American workers Depends on your definition of 'help,' no kid in school thinks "Gosh I hope I can become a factory laborer when I grow up." Let's be realistic, it doesn't help US geopolitical strategy and doesn't maintain US hegemony. The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-actualized. It might need some factory workers to realize that aim, but human drudgery po…

> Depends on your definition of 'help,' no kid in school thinks "Gosh I hope I can become a factory laborer when I grow up."

The revealed preference suggests you're wrong. That's why the messaging of every politician that has resonated with the working class, from Bernie to Obama to Trump, it's focused on bringing back manufacturing jobs.

> The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-actualized.

You can't be a citizen in a participatory democracy if you're not needed. The cognitive elites that call half the country "deplorables" might choose to give you a dole, but they'll hold it over your head and it'll come with strings attached.

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

#205

Post by Keyframe »

mmastrac wrote: post #51
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.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's an inner circle buy/sell club around the tariff announcements. There's no economic sense to pushing them hard and then hitting the brakes so much unless you are actively looking to manipulate things. The on/off tariffs are just as bad as imposing them for market confidence (if not worse).

There's a theory circulating about it's all a show to provoke rate cuts. Theory behind theory is rate cut period boosted the previous run, so it ought to boost another one?

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

#206

Post by wahern »

gadders wrote: post #201
wahern wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's down from 112bn in 2019[1]. That's a huge drop in just a couple of years. Other than optics, I don't see the relevance to simplistic nominal comparisons with Ukraine aid. [1] 68bn in 2020 and 123bn 2021, but 2019 is better baseline given COVID.

I think it undermines their moral arguments when they are still buying gas off their "enemy". It's not optics, it's hypocrisy.

Was it hypocritical of Ukraine to permit transit of Russian gas while they were engaged in unadulterated warfare?

If yes, then we have fundamentally different ideas about how to analyze morality in a situation like this.

If no, then you're being inconsistent. The reason Ukraine permitted transit is much the same the EU permitted imports of Russian gas. To shut it off abruptly would threaten support for Ukraine's defense--EU aid in the case of transit, the EU electorate and their support for aiding a foreign nation in the case of imports. You shouldn't cut off your nose to spite your face. This is reality, not a morality play.

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

#207

Post by vkou »

csa wrote: post #195
vkou wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harris also promised to fix it, and had an actual plan for addressing housing, education, medical costs, and prices in general, but we are all now pretending like none of that was a part of her campaign. Anyways, it's telling that everyone who was anxious over $3.50/dozen eggs in November is deathly silent over what's been happening in the past few weeks. All of a sudden, all of those people are now in the 'we have t…

> Harris also promised to fix it, and had an actual plan for addressing housing, education, medical costs, and prices in general, but we are all now pretending like none of that was a part of her campaign. Part of that is because there were tons of ads focusing on taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners (funded by pro-Trump orgs): https://youtu.be/kQEMn1yRYVU I have friends and family in Georgia, supposedly a swing…

I mean, sure, if their source of information about her policies is attack ads ran by her opponent, that says more about the media they watch than it does about her.

She doesn't control the press, if it won't cover the policies, what is she to do?

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

#208

Post by mopsi »

gadders wrote: post #201
wahern wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's down from 112bn in 2019[1]. That's a huge drop in just a couple of years. Other than optics, I don't see the relevance to simplistic nominal comparisons with Ukraine aid. [1] 68bn in 2020 and 123bn 2021, but 2019 is better baseline given COVID.

I think it undermines their moral arguments when they are still buying gas off their "enemy". It's not optics, it's hypocrisy.

I think it proves the opposite: an 81% reduction in a few years is remarkable. Heating and power generation infrastructure is not something you can pivot quickly. These transitions usually take decades.

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

#209

Post by swat535 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #14

After the election I know Canadian and colleagues from other countries thought of moving to US for an easier time building a business. Curious if anyone from the founder / small business crowd has had this feeling and either is still interested/happy with such a move? Or regretting it? IIRC Culturally it was said by many that the US is much better that EU / Canada for building a business as US rewards ambition. While…

To be fair, as a Canadian, I think starting a business anywhere else is better than in Canada, except maybe Germany? (Apologies to our dear Germans; my sense of humor isn’t the best.)

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

#210

Post by mullingitover »

rayiner wrote: post #204
mullingitover wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn’t help American workers Depends on your definition of 'help,' no kid in school thinks "Gosh I hope I can become a factory laborer when I grow up." Let's be realistic, it doesn't help US geopolitical strategy and doesn't maintain US hegemony. The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-actualized. It might need some factory workers to realize that aim, but human drudgery po…

> Depends on your definition of 'help,' no kid in school thinks "Gosh I hope I can become a factory laborer when I grow up." The revealed preference suggests you're wrong. That's why the messaging of every politician that has resonated with the working class, from Bernie to Obama to Trump, it's focused on bringing back manufacturing jobs. > The US doesn't need or want factory workers, it wants citizens who are self-a…

> focused on bringing back manufacturing jobs

Everyone focuses on bringing them back, because you're correct that it resonates. However, what goes unsaid is that everyone hopes it'll be someone else going to work in those factories.

> You can't be a citizen in a participatory democracy if you're not needed. The cognitive elites that call half the country "deplorables" might choose to give you a dole, but they'll hold it over your head and it'll come with strings attached.

The 'cognitive elites' never called half the country deplorables. One person called half of Trump supporters that, referring to an undeniably real subset of that voting block that is racist/homophopic/xenophobic. The (Number of Trump Voters) * 0.5 is nowhere near half the country.

This is of course a derail from the derail, which is the claim that you can't be a citizen if you're not 'needed.' You can be and are, and 'needed' is a value judgement by the ruling class who can divide and conquer the citizenry by manufacturing mass media telling citizens who is 'needed' and who is not.

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