 |
| Is the guy holding the sign actually Donald Trump? Just wondering. Photo credit: Nicholas Roberts.AFP/Getty Images |
Not so long ago, Donald Trump made the bizarre announcement that if he doesn’t get re-elected in 2020, the stock market will crash.
He, uh, forgot about what might happen if he started screwing around with tariffs on Chinese made goods.
I sat down to write this Monday, August 5th, shortly after a headline from the Reuters business news service flashed across my screen. The headline:
See. The Donald, very stable genius that he is, told us that tariffs are easy. He should know. After all, he pulled that brilliant thought out of his own precious rectum.
But the Trump Easy-Peasy Theory of Tariffs failed to account for the fact that if you slam China with tariffs, China might find a way to slam you back.
And so, the Dow on Monday posted its biggest percentage drop of the year, according to Reuters, chalking up a loss of three quarters of a trillion — that’s trillion — dollars.
I’m certain that as I write this, Steve Mnuchin and whoever else in the White House has any financial sense, if anybody, are frantically scrambling to walk back the tariffs, at least part way. Or to find some other fix that will make today’s crash look less disastrous.
That failing, or China failing to respond positively, watch for Donald to demand that the Fed cut the interest rate again. Which in fact they might have to do to save the United States from Very Stable Genius's latest financial catastrophe. It was bad enough when he was bankrupting his investors. Now he just might bankrupt the United States.
I can’t tell you what the market will do tomorrow, next week, or next year. Or whether it can recover. Or whether the recovery will take a a day, a year, or a decade. The best financial prediction I ever heard came from the late banker, J.P. Morgan. When reporters asked him what the market would do next, he announced gravely, “The stock market will fluctuate.”
But I do want to take this opportunity to congratulate our Very Stable Genius.
You’re doing a helluva job, Donny.
3 comments:
"So much winning" will go down with tRUMP's other gems, like "trade wars are easy to win", and "only the best people," as things that will never be not funny!*
*h/t - the great Charles Pierce!
The Dow recovered some of its losses today although not all. However, have no fear. Very Stable Genius will find a way to re-crash the economy, probably even before his mechanics can hammer out all the dents.
Yours Crankily,
The New York Crank
IIRC, the Chinese are targeting their retaliation specifically against those American products which are mostly produced by red states. Unlike our Very Stable Genius, the Chinese understand strategy.
Post a Comment