DL Open Thread: Monday, March 10, 2025
Trump Won’t Rule Out Recession. Because, you know, he’s not into making predictions. Stock market should love this:
Referencing “rising worries about a slowdown,” Ms. Bartiromo asked Mr. Trump: “Are you expecting a recession this year?”
“I hate to predict things like that,” Mr. Trump responded. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing, and there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”
Mr. Trump’s imposition of sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China last week rocked stock markets and invited pushback from industries, including the largest automakers, who told the president that the duties would decimate their business. Canada immediately retaliated with tariffs on $20.5 billion worth of American exports and threatened additional measures. China has also placed tariffs on U.S. goods and plans to impose another round on Monday.
Economists have turned gloomier on the economic outlook amid Mr. Trump’s dizzying approach to tariffs, which has fueled considerable uncertainty and hamstrung businesses considering new investments and hiring. The concern is that the ongoing volatility chills this activity even further, intensifying an economic slowdown that is already underway.
SW Florida (Trump Country) Likely To Be Hit Hard By Trump Policies:
With Trump now dominant, unchecked and unbalanced by Congress or any other institution, with billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rampaging through federal agencies, and with the much-hated federal government being dismantled, what can Southwest Floridians expect from the Trump policy agenda? What will be the impact on them and their region? How will people feel Trumpism in their personal lives?
Let us count the ways: Social Security Uncertainty; Prices, Tariffs And International Isolation; DOGE Destruction: FEMA And NOAA; Gulf Of Mexico: Exploitation And Degradation; Education And The Descent Into Ignorance. Sounds pretty much like Hell to me.
Those Southwest Floridians who still support Trump and his regime for emotional or sentimental reasons should know that they will not be immune or protected or untouched by the tempest out of the Oval Office. It’s coming to Southwest Florida as surely as any hurricane barreling in from the Gulf of Mexico. They’re going to get wet too.
Israel Cuts Off Electricity To Gaza. The inhumanity continues. Dog Bites Man.
Canada’s New Prime Minister is a former Central Banker Named Carney. I guess as long as he has Trump as an enemy, he’ll be OK. Not feeling the excitement, though:
Carney has waffled over his role at the investment firm Brookfield Asset Management, when it moved its headquarters from Toronto to New York – a politically sensitive issue given recent pressure from the US on businesses to uproot and move south.
His attempts to clarify the issue prompted the Globe and Mail’s editorial board to praise him as a “fast learner in the art of prevarication and hairsplitting”.
He has promised to put his substantial assets, believed to be valued at more than C$30m (£16m), into a blind trust immediately.
Sounds like a Corporadem to me. Speaking of our Corporadem Carney…:
Daniel Béland, the director of the Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University, described Carney as a “technocrat”. “He’s a boring guy who in general doesn’t have a lot of charisma,” Béland said. However, he noted that Carney’s rigorous competence with no flash may be appealing, given Canada is rattled by Trump’s trade chaos and attacks on its sovereignty.
For a while. Perhaps.
The News-Journal’s Annual Circle-Jerk Is Back. Can you say ‘click-bait’?
Sarah Mueller’s Interview With Matt Meyer. Good stuff.
What do you want to talk about?
Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest ends after 43 years
From the professor who ran the contest:
Fox News has been widely compared to North Korean state media—but listening to their ‘economic’ coverage, especially on how Trump is supposedly handling the economic mess left by Biden, really drives the point home.
Using the logic that Biden caused the current economic environment would be consistent with placing the blame for the beginning of this decade’s inflation on Trump.
To the extent it was tied to the COVID chaos, it was on Trump. Theoretically, a better COVID response wouldn’t have produced as much supply line disruption and the greedflation that ensued.
Other factors that could have contributed to the inflation during the early 2020’s might be historically low interest rates after the Great Financial Crisis of the late 2000’s along with the tax cuts and budget deficits during a time of economic growth during the late 2010’s.
Which went on for years until COVID, so while they contributed, I would say they weren’t determinative. They claimed for many years that those were causing inflation and they stubbornly failed to do so until after COVID disrupted everything.
lets look at trumps economic policies from a different and brilliant angle. can we all agree a large portion of our population are morons? if we can go on that premise and over the next 18-24 months trump destroys the economy but then at that time does a 180 on tariffs, policy, etc and the economy turns around, the general moronic populace will forget the first half of his presidency and will only see the “great turnaround from correcting all bidens failed policies” and they will laud his genius
He’ll have to do it before the midterms.
It’s pathetic how MSM won’t use the word “recession” when one is obviously underway (they can’t declare it so until enough calendar quarters are past), yet they constantly used the word in proclaiming a Biden recession that never came.
Fox is simply less subtle propaganda.
Cause And Effect.
Cause: Trump says he can’t rule out a recession. Also, don’t look at the stock market every day, says he.
Effect:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/09/stock-market-news-today-live-updates.html
BTW, Tesla’s getting hammered. Just thought you’d like to know.
Words to live by:
“We are in the throes of a manufactured correction,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. “I say manufactured because it’s really based in response to the new administration’s tariff programs, or at least threats of tariffs, and what kind of an impact that will have on the economy.”