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Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

cnbc.com

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Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#991

Post by [deleted] »

milesvp wrote: post #614
magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade def…

[deleted]

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#992

Post by scotty79 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #712
milesvp wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade def…

The real issue is people are still treating this reactionary buffoonery as if it's a trade policy that warrants critique. It isn't. Trump is a fucking idiot and he has surrounded himself with other fucking idiots and they and the reactionary base of fucking idiots they've created are cheering him on for doing fucking idiot things. A journalist successfully reverse-engineered the likely formula used to arrive at the f…

Literally the funniest thing about it is that LLMs conjure this "solution" when asked to deal with trade deficits using tariffs. It perfectly possible that one of Trump's people just asked ChatGPT and they implemented the answer.

Also the love affair with tariffs comes from a guy that wrote a book with his ideas and in that book he made up economic expert to support his views. (Ron Cara)

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#994

Post by throwaway2037 »

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

    > you can't afford a crisis of confidence in your bonds
In the last 75 years (post WW2), has there every been a crisis of confidence for US gov't debt? I cannot think of any instances.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#995

Post by drumdance »

rayiner wrote: post #977
milesvp wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade def…

Boomers really fucked on the economy to Sunday didn’t they?

Sadly, this go-round it's Gen X more than Boomers. We voted for Trump disproportionately compared to other age cohorts. I'm embarrassed on behalf of my idiot friends from high school.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#996

Post by drumdance »

sfblah wrote: post #803
hayst4ck wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize. These tariffs are China's Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chinese crops by destroying sparrows that were picking at them. Killing sparrows killed a predator of insects which did more damage to crops. This coupled with reality denying policies and ignoring experts led to one of the most devastating famines the world has ever…

My opinion on this is that the damage has already been done. Successive administrations have already loaded up debt massively and participated in a Ponzi scheme with the Fed to pretend asset valuations in the US make sense. Sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost, and valuation multiples in the US will come to resemble those that have existed throughout history, and those which exist in all other parts o…

Budget deficits are not the same as trade deficits. Trump barely even mentions the debt and clearly does not care about it one bit.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#997

Post by IAmGraydon »

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

>Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky. Maybe it was the deficit outlook, maybe the global response to tariffs — but whatever it was, yields started climbing. Fast.

Seems pretty simple to me - bond yields moved up sharply because they follow inflation expectations. Bond holders take on inflation risk, so when future inflation is expected to increase, yields go up to compensate. Out of control tariffs equals out of control inflation, which equals rocketing bond yields. The fact that Trump's team didn't realize this would happen is both hilarious and frightening. This is Econ 101 stuff.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#998

Post by wickedOne »

paulddraper wrote: post #836
wickedOne wrote: post #363

i wonder why the rest of the world doesn't just come together for a while and stop trading / providing raw materials to the u.s. for let's say a year or so. isn't this all just a huge pile of bluff poker?

> stop trading to the u.s. That makes as much sense as a hunger strike over food rations.

because the u.s. is the only country the rest of the world can trade with?

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#999

Post by wickedOne »

tim333 wrote: post #612
wickedOne wrote: post #363

i wonder why the rest of the world doesn't just come together for a while and stop trading / providing raw materials to the u.s. for let's say a year or so. isn't this all just a huge pile of bluff poker?

A lot of people have jobs dependent on business as usual. You don't want to just fire the workers for a year.

the u.s. is not the only country other countries trade with so firing people should not have to be the result as long as you divert?
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