Does no one consider how bad it’s going to get?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just bought a house a couple of months ago. DH and I each took about 200k out of brokerage for down payment, intending to replace it when we sell our other house in July.

With all the talk of a dc market crash we wanted to sell asap. But now I’m thinking we might want to keep some money in real estate. We are renting it out, and it is inside the beltway and walking distance to the wfc metro with a 2.5 percent mortgage. So…might hold onto it instead of selling and investing?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Hmm. Yeah I'd hold. Land value is real. But I'm a horrible person to ask for financial advice, I'm very risk averse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trump's approval rates are tanking...particularly related to management of the economy, so yes, OP, it appears that someone else other than you is paying attention.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5230291-trump-approval-rating-dip-poll/

Are we still believing in ratings? Every Trump voter I know still thinks he’s doing a good job. I even got a “Look how old he is, he’s still working so hard at a job nobody wants, making the hard, unpopular decisions that no other President will do to right this country.” line from someone this week. I know it’s anecdata, but people I know are not souring on him.

Every single county in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race moved toward the Democrats and away from the Republicans.

And that was before the tariffs.

This is all very upsetting and painful to watch, and some of what he's doing will take years or even decades to fix, but I do have faith that people are seeing him for what he is finally.

If the Dems take back the House and Senate in the midterms, there is some hope we can mitigate the worst of it.

The Senate will be tough, but the Republicans have almost zero chance to retain the House.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if he lifts the tariffs?

Trust with with our allies is lost. You don’t just regain that.

He's now saying that he'll reduce the tariffs on China if they sell TikTok. I mean...WTF is this global trade war even about? It's a desperate plea for attention while everybody else suffers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m only 40 so if we are going into a Great Depression, I’ll be okay.

Really? I'm turning 40 and feel like this is a horrible time for it. I have kids to feed.

You could be 60 with two kids starting college and no prospect of getting another job when you lose this one. And your retirement accounts just dropped by half.

Yes, it could be worse. But as a 40 year old whose whole career field is being vaporized (research - I'll lose my fed job, and all the contracts and academic grants are being terminated in the private sector), I don't feel like i have great prospects for a new job either. Better to be 20-30 with no dependents and a long runway for a career pivot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is going to pull back on many of the tariffs by the end of the month if not sooner.

+1. It is all a negotiating ploy. It is how he lives his life. Hit hard and first, then retreat based on how the deal shakes out. He wants to rebalance the trade deficits.

If he actually plays it out a year, he can start reversing course in the fall just after the tax bill gets signed, the markets will come back and the republicans will claim victory right before the midterms.

[Anonymous]

If Trump reverses the tariffs, it will be even worse. We will be like the country that cried wolf. No one will believe anything we say, no one will trust our policies. There is nothing the global economy likes less than a big country acting erratically with unpredictable swings in policy.

[Anonymous]

The only upside is maybe my teen girls will stop buying huge boxes of fast fashion and their closets will stop overflowing.
Other than that, looks like my leaky roof and frayed sneakers will have to last me another 4-10 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Trump reverses the tariffs, it will be even worse. We will be like the country that cried wolf. No one will believe anything we say, no one will trust our policies. There is nothing the global economy likes less than a big country acting erratically with unpredictable swings in policy.

Honey, we are already there. We were there a month ago. He’s a buffoon and changes his mind when the wind blows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Trump reverses the tariffs, it will be even worse. We will be like the country that cried wolf. No one will believe anything we say, no one will trust our policies. There is nothing the global economy likes less than a big country acting erratically with unpredictable swings in policy.

No one believes him anyway. Truly. Anyone (person or country) who thinks he’s a man of his word is an idiot. All you have to do is look back at his erratic behavior since taking office.

I would like to believe the rest of the world won’t hold him against us for the long term, but I wouldn’t blame them if they do. We voted for this nut. I think best case scenario is we get ignored and put in time out for a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only upside is maybe my teen girls will stop buying huge boxes of fast fashion and their closets will stop overflowing.
Other than that, looks like my leaky roof and frayed sneakers will have to last me another 4-10 years.

I’ve been reading about how China is going to start shifting their over production to Europe.

I’m not sure if this crosses the politics line OP set, but these are the economic realities of a global trade war.

https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/dumping-key-categories-of-chinese-imports-have-surged-in-europe/

There are other articles that talk about the political implications of this from the NYT and FT, but this is the one I could find without a paywall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is going to pull back on many of the tariffs by the end of the month if not sooner.

+1. It is all a negotiating ploy. It is how he lives his life. Hit hard and first, then retreat based on how the deal shakes out. He wants to rebalance the trade deficits.

If he actually plays it out a year, he can start reversing course in the fall just after the tax bill gets signed, the markets will come back and the republicans will claim victory right before the midterms.

Nobody trusts Trump or the US anymore. He changes his mind as often as his handler changes his diapers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Trump reverses the tariffs, it will be even worse. We will be like the country that cried wolf. No one will believe anything we say, no one will trust our policies. There is nothing the global economy likes less than a big country acting erratically with unpredictable swings in policy.

Well come on, we already have no credibility. If there is anything I would say to another country, or an immigrant, it’s that you can’t trust anything we say. We’re not even trying for credibility any more.

[Anonymous]

“States may choose foolish policies, but they cannot escape the consequences imposed by the structure of the system in which they operate.”
— Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 1979

Kenneth Waltz was the founder of neorealism which used to be the Republican approach to foreign policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interest rates will come down! Hood tight. Things will get better.

I mean, fingers crossed, we'll get an ebola outbreak or another huge pandemic we refuse to manage from the federal level, the market will crash and, sure, the rates will come down!

Do people not know WHY the rates were historically low before? Rates now are average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Trump reverses the tariffs, it will be even worse. We will be like the country that cried wolf. No one will believe anything we say, no one will trust our policies. There is nothing the global economy likes less than a big country acting erratically with unpredictable swings in policy.

This is not about global economy or anything else for him. It's bullying countries and industries to come make deals that specifically benefit him.