Andrew Egger thinks the markets may be discovering that Trump is crazy:

"Markets seem to be slowly discovering what close Trump watchers have known for years: An errant, insane Trump thought may emerge in the form of a single tweet—rattling the news cycle and then vanishing without a trace—but if that idea reemerges on multiple occasions, it quickly threatens to jump into official administration policy."

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession
/11

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/market-discovering-trump-crazy-fed-powell-economy

"It’s not just the destructive tariffs. It’s also the chaos, as policy zigzags wildly, and the craziness. If you were a foreign investor, would you want to bet on America right now? Would you even want to visit to look at investment prospects, given the risk that you might be imprisoned by ICE because you once sent a text critical of Trump?"

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar
/10

"Trump inherited an economy in remarkably good shape. We’d had 'immaculate disinflation': The inflation spike of 2021-22, largely caused by Covid-related supply chain disruptions, had faded away without a large rise in unemployment.

But Trump wasted no time in squandering the hand he’d been given."

~ Paul Krugman

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar
/9

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/stop-in-the-name-of-trump

"Per Reuters, it even raised its annual growth forecast for the United States at that time to 2.7 percent, citing “robust labor markets and accelerating investment.” At that stage, the only cloud on this gloriously sunny horizon was an oblique warning to world leaders that any 'intensification of protectionist policies' would damage trade and investment and rock global markets. Whatever could they have meant?"

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar #IMF
/7

"Fast-forward three months … and here we are. The S&P 500 has tumbled 14 percent since Trump’s inauguration, the stock market's worst start to a presidency in more than a century, according to an analysis released Monday by Bespoke Investment Group (per Investopedia.) The dollar is down 10 percent since Trump’s inauguration, per WaPo. Pretty much all the damage has been done since 'Liberation Day' on April 2."

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar #IMF
/8

"The International Monetary Fund will officially downgrade global growth forecasts this morning in response to the swirling trade war and severe market turbulence triggered by Donald Trump’s on-off tariffs. ...

Back on Jan. 17 — about a million political years ago — the IMF was merrily forecasting global growth of 3.3 percent for both 2025 and 2026."

~ Jack Blanchard

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar #IMF
/6

https://www.politico.com/playbook

"It's amazing how much winning we've been doing."

~ Benjamin and EJ Wittes, as they point the graphic displayed below, showing the performance of the Dow since Trump was elected

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar
/5

https://www.dogshirtdaily.com/p/so-much-winning

"She noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average ‘is headed for its worst April performance since 1932,’ when the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, told Lang: ‘It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure.’”

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar
/4

"The dollar hit a three-year low, while the value of gold soared. Journalist Brian Tyler Cohen noted that since Trump took office, the Dow has fallen 13.8%, the S&P 500 is down 15.5%, and the Nasdaq is down 20.5%.

Hannah Erin Lang of the Wall Street Journal reported that ‘[t]he Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions.’"

#Trump #tariffs #FederalReserve #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq #dollar
/3

“The stock market plunged again today after President Donald J. Trump continued to harass Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. The threat of instability if Trump tries to fire Powell, added to the instability already created by Trump’s tariff policies, saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 971.82 points, or 2.48%; the S&P 500 dropped 2.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.55%."

~ Heather Cox Richardson

#Trump #tariffs #StockMarket #recession #Dow #Nasdaq
/2

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-21-2025

“Billions of reichsmarks are needed for rearmament,” #Hitler had told his ministers in that meeting. “The future of Germany depends solely & exclusively on the rebuilding of the army.” Hitler’s #TradeWar with his neighbors would prove to be but a prelude to his shooting war with the world.

“Never believe in help from abroad, never on help from outside our own nation, our own people,” #Hitler said. “The future of the German people is to be found in our own selves.”

Hitler did not refer specifically to the #TradeWar he had launched that afternoon, just as he did not mention the rearmament plans he had discussed w/his cabinet the previous day.

#Hitler launched his #TradeWar on the second Friday of his chancellorship. That evening, he appeared in the Berlin Sportpalast, the city’s largest venue, for a rally in front of thousands of jubilant followers. It was his first public appearance as chancellor, & it served as a victory lap. Hitler dispensed with the dark suit he wore in cabinet meetings in favor of his brown storm-trooper uniform with a bright-red swastika armband.

The #Hitler #tariffs, announced on Friday, Feb 10, 1933, stunned observers. “The dimension of the tariff increases have in fact exceeded all expectations,” the Vossische Zeitung wrote disapprovingly, proclaiming the moment a “fork in the road” for the German #economy. It appeared that Europe’s largest & most industrialized nation would suddenly be returning “to the furrow & the plow.” The New York Times saw this for what it was: “a #TradeWar” against its European neighbors.

…as one critic observed…the international #trading system had been in place for 200 years & proved itself beneficial to all parties. #Hitler’s proposed “national economy,” with its self-defeating #tariff policies, would plunge the country into a “severe crisis” that could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that was even before any damage wreaked by retaliatory #tariffs.

Hans Joachim von Rohr, who worked at the Reich’s nutrition ministry, went on national radio to explain the logic of #Hitler’s #tariff strategy. “The products that Germany lacks must be made more expensive; then farmers will produce them in sufficient quantities,” Rohr explained. “And if foreign competition is kept at bay by tariffs & the like, city residents will prefer domestic production.” Rohr offered lard—“Schmalz”—as an example.

The German #Industry & #Trade Assn issued a public warning on #tariffs. “Germany has the largest export #surplus of all major #trading countries,” the assn reported. “This situation calls for double caution in trade policy measures that could lead to countermeasures.”

But although the average voter may not have cared about the details of the #Hitler #economy, the #markets did. The initial surge in #stocks that greeted Hitler’s appointment halted then dipped & flattened amid the political & economic #uncertainty of Hitler’s #chaotic first weeks as chancellor.