Trump is no economic genius --- and "Liberation Day" is the proof.
How long did our "liberation" from sanity last? About a week. This is how long it took our former friends and trading partners to school Trump in the fact that trade isn't always "bad".
So why exactly did "Tariff Man's" big day turn into a big fail? Two reasons:
1) The real world is a complicated and interconnected place.
Simple minded solutions may sell to simple minded folk watching Fox Noise but this doesn't mean these simple ideas are credible and will actually work in the real world.
2) The USA's biggest export is debt. We sell a lot of debt to our former friends and trading partners. And if they suddenly stop buying, we are sunk.
In other words, isolation is a prescription for economic disaster. The next simple but equally bad idea --- a debt default.
This is all Economics 101 stuff --- and Trump is failing the test.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/why-the-bond-market-is-a...
guide to participating from home, watch:
- vix futures, front month has only hit 40 3x in 20 years, tho for sustained period starting late 2007 when the contracts were a lot lower volume
- /zb /zn futures contracts, BBB OAS spread on St. Louis fed website,
- credit default swaps, i can't find free public website
- some people say you can get insight from polymarket, other betting sites
- GDP now on Atlanta Fed website, note gold haircut
- other sites monitor options' large buys, skews and dex/gex (gamma exposure) on indexes, futures and single stocks but those sites are $ subscription
The quoted tweet is pretty eye opening:
> Import Chinese battery: 145% tariff
> Import Chinese battery inside Chinese laptop: 20% tariff
> Import Chinese battery inside Vietnamese laptop: 0% tariff
If their goal was to encourage manufacturing in the US, it's not looking good.