What would Clark do?
https://thehill.com/business/5009285-trump-new-tariffs-canada-mexico-china/
Since Clark would never run for officeâŚhard to say what he would do. This thread will get killed soon anyway, but here is a response in the interim.
Holding neighboring countries accountable for shipping their illegal immigrants into the US seems like a good plan to me. Lets make them part of the solution and hold them accountable. I suspect the mayor of NY would agree with this approach.
Macroeconomics 101?
Foreign Policy 101
Under the heading of âHow to Win Friends?â
Funny how the employers who hire illegal immigrants never seem to be targeted.
And in the upcoming administration, certain employers may be targeted while others get a pass because the administration is favorable to them.
Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. I believe has the best podcasts about how Washington DC affects investors and what investors should ignore and what they should pay attention to, and they tell it like it is while trying very hard to remain politically neutral. Their latest podcast âUncertainty Around Future Policyâ is a must-listen. Please subscribe to their podcasts, I like âOn Investingâ (Sonders & Jones) and âWashington Wiseâ (Mike Townsend) the best. They have five podcasts in total.
A quote from their latest:
"LIZ ANN SONDERS: Well, youâre right. And you and I are at IMPACT, and we did our panel last night, and there was a lot of discussion about tariffs. Iâd say if I had to put it in sort of a thematic button in terms of what types of questions, some of them are broad with regard to policies and questions around that old line of âDo you take him literally or take him seriously?â and how that applies to tariffs and immigration this time. Do we assume that the campaign promises go to that degree? And of course, our answer is, and even our colleague Mike Townsendâs answer is, âWe donât know.â Thatâs something weâre going to all have to wait and see about. But certainly, one of the things we talked about on stage, as you know, yesterday is that it is really, really hard to argue the other side of âTariffs will slow growth and raise inflation.â And at the extreme of what has been proposed, theyâre highly inflationary. So Iâve been getting a lot of questions about the inflation impact of tariffs. And I answer often by also weaving in the immigration side of things. And to the extent that there are mass deportations that, of course, lowers labor supply and, all else, equal raises labor costs, which if you add that into the mix, that puts upward pressure on inflation. And that could be part of the reason why your world has been affected with higher bond yields, which to some degree also reflect that economic growth has been fairly resilient. But now as we look into the future, the inflationary impacts of both tariffs and immigration come into play. "
If some people think they are libtards and others think they are sanewashers, then they are probably doing a good job!
Personally, I have quite a few assets that do well in inflation, I have some TIPS, some Savings Bonds Series I, also positions in commodities and stocks in natural resource extraction companies. But if inflation doesnât come. those will not get bid up, but my other stocks will continue to go up⌠currently I have ETFs tracking S&P500, Russell 2000, US REITS, and Emerging Markets.
What I donât have is long duration bonds⌠T-Bills are holding up, if inflation is perking up the Fed wonât go much below 4%, and high yield savings rates will be acceptable to me. But, if the Federal budget deficit continues to rip (due to the continuation and expansion of tax cuts) the increased Federal Treasury issuance will keep long-term interest rates high. Oh, this will keep mortgage interest rates high, thatâs why they are going up⌠they track the 10 year US Treasury pretty closely. US 10-year was 3.7% on 9/18/2024, now itâs 4.27%⌠so someoneâs mortgage just went up, and a bond investor had a loss on a mark-to-market basis.
Someone just messaged me⌠âCanada is the #1 egg exporter to the USâ. OK, didnât know that.
At this point, all you can do is get yourself and your family ready to profit from misfortune, and if people complain, then just shrug and say âThis is what people voted forâ.
I have lots of dry powder, I think stocks are going through a honeymoon âbromanceâ period, but as events unfold in 2025-2026, and because we are overdue for a recession anyway (COVID 2020 didnât count⌠that was just a spike, not a real recession), I think there could be a significant buyable dip in the future.
Letâs cut to the chase. Here are the facts.
US National Debt = 37 trillion dollars
Number of US taxpayers = 167 million
37 trillion dollars divided by 167 million taxpayers = $215,568.62 for each American taxpayer.
The US collected $5.03 trillion in federal revenues in 2022, that equates to $15,098 collected per person.
I have to be quite honest, I think there is only one way to master this, and it will be âarrived atâ after years of all politicians making every bombastic statement after the next, and externalizing and demonizing everyone and everything in sight. The enforcers will be the financial markets⌠the solution will be inflating the debt away in real terms and letting the purchasing power of the US Dollar fall in real terms.
The US debt in 1990 was $3 trillion, the population was 248 M. So their debt to pop ratio was $12k per capita. In 2024 Dollars $29k.
So the debt has to fall by 87% in real terms per capita to get back to 1990 levels? I canât wrap my head around that.
I guess thatâs why I hold gold at the end of the day. Because I canât wrap my head around the debt. But gold is tough to own. Look at gold versus S&P500 in recent years. Very tough to hold.
I agree. Even in the best of political circumstances, if there is such a thing, economic cycles continue. I donât know if a stock market correction is the same as a recession, but the stock market has been flying high for quite a while.
The arbiter in this situation will be the threat of the US$ falling out of favor as the worldâs principle reserve currency. That will be the day of reckoning.
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After the British Pound Sterling stopped being the world reserve currency, Britain found itself to be a rather poor country after all, after its empire was gone.
With friends who rape, murder, drain our resources from natural to economic, who are drug pushers and pedophiles, pillage our communities, placing tariffs on them is a blessing.
IMO, they deserve a worse hand dealt.
GoshâŚusing those standards, all Italians are members of the mafia running drug and gambling rings and pushing drugs on kids. Some, Iâm sure, are good people. But letâs lump the good with the bad.
Thank you for sharingâŚ