quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:


I just look and see I lost $40k today with no articulated solid goal for these tariffs.

Did you SELL everything, today?
If you did not, then you didn't actually lose anything.
Anyone in the market and I assume you have, must have experienced ups and downs?
It is not fun watching downs, I must agree but this is an infrastructure restructuring with experiencing the costs more up front.
We all need patience.
Peace, out.

Thanks guys, but you are not Trump. Trump needs to explain why the gains are worth the pain. Most people aren't smart enough to understand what he's doing if he explained it. Without a good explanation for it, people will just see their retirement shrink and the cost of manufactured goods increasing and get angry.

You guys do know that much if not all domestic production is to some degree reliant on imported materials which are now subject to tariffs, right? Exactly how much cheaper do you think domestic goods will be?

This is a 1890’s solution to a 2025 problem. Tariffs in and of themselves aren’t a terrible thing, when applied judiciously. This is a wholly different thing.

As to patience, hopefully you have the time to be patient. If you’re a retiree or soon to be retiree watching your 401k go down the tubes, you might not be feeling too patient right about now.

quote:

Originally posted by Milliron:
You guys do know that much if not all domestic production is to some degree reliant on imported materials which are now subject to tariffs, right? Exactly how much cheaper do you think domestic goods will be?

This is a 1890’s solution to a 2025 problem. Tariffs in and of themselves aren’t a terrible thing, when applied judiciously. This is a wholly different thing.

As to patience, hopefully you have the time to be patient. If you’re a retiree or soon to be retiree watching your 401k go down the tubes, you might not be feeling too patient right about now.

I suppose you’d prefer Harris won.

Oh no, this could cause some temporary discomfort, we should go back to letting the world walk all over us.

Funny how no one ever says “Gee, I made too much money today this doesn’t seem right.” on the days the market shoots UP several hundred points.

Market has been pretty volatile since since the election, I expect it will remain so for most of this year as things settle from the apple cart and money changer tables being flipped over.

I say this as a fairly new retiree, concerning but more concerned for the country than myself

Harbor Freight is fooked

Oh noes!!! My 401 K has dropped. We need to install Kamala as president!!!!

America’s future is bigger than temporary losses, people. Trump knows what he’s doing. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

In the meantime, read “Human Action” by Ludwig von Mises and learn a thing or two.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Erick-Woods Erickson

https://ewerickson.substack.co...the-bad-and-the-ugly



Let’s hope that President Trump’s opening salvo will be just a negotiation tactic. Imposing a baseline, non-reciprocal tariff does not appear to be a negotiation tactic, but we can hope. Of course, in hoping, we need to wonder if the wipe out of several trillion dollars in 401(k) values in the last 24 hours makes those negotiations worth it.


Let’s start with what a trade deficit is. It is not actually a bad thing, and more often than not, countries running trade deficits are those that are wealthier and healthier economically. Growing up, when I heard “trade deficit,” I thought it was bad because deficits are bad. That’s not what is going on here.

A trade deficit means that our country imports more from a country than we export to that country. Our goods tend to be more expensive because labor and production costs in the United States are higher. A country like Vietnam is poor. Its labor and production costs are lower than ours, so goods can be manufactured in Vietnam at a cheaper price than they can be here. That means the Vietnamese do not have the purchasing power to buy as many American goods as Americans can buy from Vietnam. As a result, we run a trade deficit with Vietnam. The Vietnamese poor (or even their Middle Class) cannot buy our expensive stuff, and our poor people, far more affluent than the Vietnamese as a whole, can buy a lot of their cheap stuff.

The result is that even the poorest Americans can buy a lot of clothing, food, and products for their home, while the Vietnamese cannot.

That’s all a trade deficit is. Unsurprisingly, poor nations tend to run trade surpluses, and wealthy nations run trade deficits.

The problem is that President Donald Trump, since he was a businessman, has always gotten the concept backwards and is now rolling out a trade policy that has the potential to reset the balance of global trade in China’s favor, alienate the United States from global supply chains, sever the United States dollar from global reserve currency preferences, and impose, by fiat, the largest tax increase on the American public since 1968.

Yes, friends, what happened in the Rose Garden yesterday amounts to the most significant tax increase on the American public since the Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968, which, unlike the tariffs, actually passed Congress.

It is frankly galling to see the GOP, the party supposedly of limited government, cheering on tax increases by executive fiat, particularly knowing the very people cheering would be freaking the f— out if Joe Biden did the same thing.

When Barack Obama and congressional Democrats realigned the American healthcare system, Republicans were furious and voters revolted at the ballot box. Donald Trump, single-handedly, just upended American global trade and the economy, and many of his supporters are cheering. Most of them do not understand the economic ramifications of these actions.

We are told an American business can now and should build a manufacturing base in the United States. However, these businesses do not know how long the tariffs will last, and, in the worst-case scenario, they could end in four years with a new president. So do you think they want to invest the capital in new factories with higher labor costs that won’t be finalized for more than four years in the United States when the tariffs could go away within four years?

It is not a wise investment for many businesses. Think about oil companies, which are hesitant to invest in new oil production even with Trump in office because it can take up to twenty years to get a solid return on investment, and Democrats could be back in power between now and then. Why would a shoe manufacturer want to make more expensive shoes in the United States when the factory setup and training will take five years, and the tariffs could be gone in four?

Never underestimate the predilections of the winning political party fixing the problems of the losing political party. Trump’s tariffs have given the Democrats an economic message that silences their cultural activists and elevates their economic pragmatists.

If you want to encapsulate Donald Trump’s economic vision, a 10% baseline tariff puts the United States in the territory of an African third-world nation. Every single developed nation on planet earth has a baseline tariff of less than 10%, and most of those nations, contrary to what you might believe, exempt the United States from paying tariffs due to trade agreements Trump just scuttled.

The good thing is that Trump’s tariffs don’t take effect for another week, so countries have time to negotiate changes.

Likewise, the total Chinese tariff will increase by over 50%, which will bring economic ruin to China. That’s a good thing.

Rare earth minerals, pharmaceuticals, precious metals, and high-tech components will be exempt from tariffs. Much of what is already covered under the USMCA deal with Mexico and Canada will also be protected from tariffs.

The bad news is the 10% baseline tariffs. This is not a reciprocal tariff. It is a baseline tariff that will apply to all otherwise non-exempt goods. This will have an immediate inflationary effect and slow the economy. It comes with a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and vehicle parts. Those, too, are not reciprocal. Steel and aluminum tariffs are also imposed and are not reciprocal.

Additionally, these tariffs are clearly rushed. The President is imposing a tariff on Heard and McDonald Islands, which penguins, not people, inhabit. Those islands were on the list with a 10% tariff imposed, but they literally have a population of zero human beings.

Israel not only has a free trade agreement with the United States, which means virtually every American good has no tariff, but it also scrapped the few remaining tariffs with the United States. Nonetheless, it will be hit with a 17% tariff, and some Trump officials, on background this afternoon, slandered the Israelis as intellectual property thieves to justify the tariffs.

The Trump team claims the European Union nations have massive tariffs on the United States, but the numbers are imaginary. What the Trump team did to claim the EU has massive tariffs is a simple math formula.

The Trump team took a genuinely insane metric to display as a nation’s tariff against us. Essentially, they took a country's trade deficit with us as a numerator in an equation with the denominator being that nation’s exports to the United States, then multiplied by 100.

For example, we have a trade deficit of $123.5 billion with Vietnam, and exports from Vietnam are $136.6 billion a year. So:

Behold — in the White House chart, they claim Vietnam imposes a 90% tariff on the United States. This is economic illiteracy and insanity concurrently.

Another example is South Korea, which has a free trade agreement with the United States. Undeterred, the President is adding tariffs to South Korean imports and misrepresenting how South Korea treats American imports. He claims South Korea assesses a 50% tariff on American imports. It is 0.79%, with most American goods even exempted from that.

Then there is Australia. We run a trade surplus with Australia because Australia does not have a massive manufacturing base but is very wealthy, so it can afford American imports. Nonetheless, Trump is imposing a 10% tariff on Australian imports, claiming Australia, which has a free trade agreement with us, imposes a tariff on us. That is not true.

Likewise, Switzerland will be hit with a tariff higher than most European nations, but 99% of American goods sold in Switzerland have no tariff imposed.

The ugly is Donald Trump's addition of massive tariffs to Asian countries outside China. Many American manufacturers moved their businesses to places like Vietnam, which are actually not pro-China. Now, Trump is smacking these countries, Taiwan included, with steep, steep tariffs. In addition to hurting those economies, he risks driving many of them towards China. He risks hurting American businesses and consumers who could not afford to buy the same products if manufacturing were repatriated. He is directly hurting American manufacturers who moved their manufacturing out of China to Vietnam, Laos, etc. He is also hurting American consumers who shop at Walmart, one of the largest importers in the country.

There are ways to use tariffs to build alliances and undermine China strategically. Trump has gone about it precisely the opposite way.

Worse, this will most likely lead to a recession. A recession will lead to a resurgent Democratic Party, fixed solely by the excesses of the GOP. The wokes have not learned their lessons, but they are smart enough to shut up and make it about the economy in the midterm elections. Voters are going to be pissed off if tariffs persist and the economy slows down.

There were strategic ways to deploy tariffs. Misinformation, inaccuracies, and implementing these tariffs risk the MAGA project. You may think they are acceptable and necessary. But will your neighbor? The odds are they will not.

One of the main reasons your neighbors will not like the tariffs is that the President forgot to exempt grocery imports. Your bananas, coffee, and even beer are about to increase in price. Small craft brewers will be hurt because many of them source Canadian hops, which will be tariffed, and imported aluminum cans.

When I mentioned coffee on social media last night, people criticized $7 latte drinkers. But we do not have a high-volume domestic coffee bean industry. Folgers and Maxwell House buy their beans in countries that will now be hit with tariffs that do not exempt coffee. The coffee of the working class is going to go up, and so are the bananas the stay-at-home mom is feeding her toddler.

The bottom line is that this massive tax increase will negatively impact the working class the hardest. Roughly 50% of the vehicles sold in this country under $40,000.00 are imports, and that, too, will hit the working class.

Think of the “I did that” stickers people put on gas pumps after Joe Biden caused high gas prices. The Trump version will soon appear at local grocery stores and elsewhere.

For perspective, the United States is about to have the highest baseline tariff on imports of any developed nation. Literally every other first-world nation will have a rate lower than ours. The second highest rate is South Korea’s at 8.6%, but over 90% of imports to South Korea from the United States have a 0% tariff, and the other 10% have a 0.79% tariff thanks to a free trade agreement that Trump’s tariffs just killed.

This is the Trump Administration signaling that they want to leave the world order instead of leading it. Liberation Day will liberate you from your money and the United States from global leadership.

You may think the cost of global leadership is too high. Wait till you see the cost of not leading it.

But don’t worry; tariffs are good and popular. Suppose the GOP faces massive defeats next year. In that case, it will be a globalist/corporate/progressive conspiracy to stop the tariffs by stealing the election, not a rejection by the voters who love the beautiful tariffs.

The people love the tariffs. Trump said so.

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
Funny how no one ever says “Gee, I made too much money today this doesn’t seem right.” on the days the market shoots UP several hundred points.

Market has been pretty volatile since since the election, I expect it will remain so for most of this year as things settle from the apple cart and money changer tables being turned over.

I say this as a fairly new retiree, concerning but more concerned for the country than myself

I'll go further. The market has always had its ups and downs, crashes and spikes. It's the nature of the beast. But, over the long term, it has always netted up. If folks are too squeamish when experiencing a short term crash, then maybe they shouldn't be in it. And, almost like you, I'm getting close to hanging it up, but am I sweating over this? Not a drop.

These tariffs should have been implemented long ago. And we should have said fuck you with the policies required to do business in PRC.

We're gasping for breath. It's like a cancer was onset in our little toe when the door started to open back in the 70's.

Well, the cancer has spread to both legs and an arm now. It's starting in the last arm and after that sepsis will set in.

We need to get into ICU and take serious meds and whatever it takes to get rid of the cancer. Else we are are doomed. It's going to be painful. It's going to hurt.

But hopefully in the end, we will survive and come out stronger and live a long life.

Recovering from cancer, addiction, all the corruption and greed - it ain't easy. But it's good. This ain't about equity. It's about survival.

Skins, you should be embarrassed. You've made no attempt to understand what is happening. Then, you ask us to explain it to you. Then, when members try to give you some idea of what's going on, you say, no, Donald Trump needs to do it.

You're a grown man. Behave like a grown man.

And Milliron, you're making an even worse showing in this. You want Donald Trump to fail in his efforts, and in turn, take the economy down with him. And now, you'll tell me that that's not the case.

Trump fires staff of 'idiot' adviser embroiled in Signal scandal after urging by controversial MAGA influencer

By NIKKI SCHWAB, CHIEF CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM AT THE WHITE HOUSE
PUBLISHED: 11:12 EDT, 3 April 2025 | UPDATED: 12:14 EDT, 3 April 2025

President Donald Trump has fired several members of his National Security Council team.

DailyMail.com confirmed an Axios report released Thursday morning.

The dismissals come after National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat where top administration officials were discussing an attack on the Houthis in Yemen.

Trump has publicly supported Waltz, a former Florida congressman, in the aftermath of Signalgate, despite some White House insiders labeling him a 'f***ing idiot.'

However The New York Times reported Thursday morning that far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office on Wednesday and pressed for NSC firings.

Loomer came to the White House armed with research that purportedly showed that some NSC staffers were not loyal enough to the president.

'Out of respect for President Trump and the privacy of the Oval Office, I’m going to decline on divulging any details about my Oval Office meeting with President Trump,' Loomer told DailyMail.com Thursday.

'It was an honor to meet with President Trump and present him with my research findings, I will continue working hard to support his agenda, and I will continue reiterating the importance of strong vetting, for the sake of protecting the President and our national security,' she added.

Waltz sat in on the meeting and defended members of his team, The Times said.

'NSC doesnt comment on personnel matters,' was the official line from NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes.

But CNN reported Thursday that the individuals fired were Brian Walsh, Thomas Boodry and David Feith.

The network said that the firings were directly the result of Trump's meeting with Loomer, who Trump's top Congressional ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, had tried to get banished from MAGA months ago.

Loomer, however, has maintained a position in Trump's orbit.

The axed officials include Walsh, a director for intelligence who previously worked for now Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Boodry, Waltz's former legislative director in Congress who was a senior director for legislative affairs and Feth, who oversaw technology and national security. Feth had served in the State Department during Trump's first term.

Loomer had publicly set her sights on pushing out Alex Wong, Waltz's deputy, and the one NSC staffer mentioned by name on the Houthi Signal chat.

She has mainly gone after Wong for being 'Chinese.'

Wong is American, with parents who immigrated from China.

Loomer also floated that Wong isn't loyal because his wife had worked at the Department of Justice during Obama and Biden administrations and her father was a shareholder of a Chinese satellite maker.

'I don't know why we have Chinese individuals in positions of national security,' Loomer said of Wong in an online video posted last week.

The rhetoric surrounding Wong got so heated, that Republican Sen. Tom Cotton had to jump to his and his wife's defense.

'Alex Wong and his wife Candice are complete and total patriots, 100% MAGA Warriors who always put America First,' Cotton said in an X post on March 27.

'For three years, Alex worked hard for me until President Trump smartly hired him away,' Cotton said. 'President Trump made another great decision to hire Alex as his Deputy National Security Adviser. America is safer and better off with Alex in the White House. THANK YOU for your service, Alex!!!'

It appears that Wong wasn't part of the ousted group of National Security Council employees.

Greene, the Georgia Republican who also has a history of making controversial statements and pushing conspiracy theories, has been the most prominent MAGA member to publicly attempt to push Loomer out.

In September, ahead of the 2024 election, she called out a post written by Loomer as being 'extremely racist.'

Loomer said if Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, won the election 'the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.'

Harris is half-Jamaican and half-Indian.

Greene called out Loomer's 'rhetoric and hateful tone' and said she 'doesn't represent MAGA as a whole.'

quote:

Originally posted by Milliron:
As to patience, hopefully you have the time to be patient. If you’re a retiree or soon to be retiree watching your 401k go down the tubes, you might not be feeling too patient right about now.

If you are retired or will soon be you should have already have the bulk of your retirement in a fixed income, low risk plan.

I just retired on 02/14/25.

I do have an excellent fee only financial advisor.

I would urge those of you that believe you are close to retirement and those of you who may have just entered retirement, consider speaking with one. Most will give you a free initial consultation. Yes, it is a sales pitch, but they will also provide some kind of free evaluation of your situation (you will need to provide financial info to them in advance so that they can prepare whatever they offer for free as part of this service).

YouTube also has a few good planners that provide very informative videos that give generalized advise and will walk through scenarios of real life clients or scenarios based on user comments.

There are also several good, free tools on the net that will allow you to realistically game plan your retirement.

All of this being said, if you are heading into retirement without some kind of guaranteed, non-volatile income, then market corrections are going to hurt. I personally have cash for the short term, low risk bonds and other non-volatile investments for the medium term and all equities for the longer term. My split is about 70/30 and I have 7 years of these guaranteed investments/income.

You need to be prepared for at least a 3 year downturn in the market and the losses that come with it.

You have the ability to allocate the investments in your 401(k) to match a 70/30, 60/40, or whatever allocation is right for you.

DO NOT MAKE THESE ALLOCATION CHANGES NOW. You missed the time to do this. Wait until the market recovers and then make these changes.

If you are healthy and your situation allows, you may have to work another 6 months to a year if your allocation is all equities at this time.

I am not a financial advisor... Not even close. But like me, you have to do the work to understand this or hire someone who does. If not, you can be in trouble even if you are a millionaire (in your 401(k)) with a pension and a rich uncle.

In the meantime, relax and do not watch your 401(k) or whatever. You will drive yourself insane and start thinking irrationally (like doubting what Trump is trying to do).

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Thanks guys, but you are not Trump. Trump needs to explain why the gains are worth the pain. Most people aren't smart enough to understand what he's doing if he explained it. Without a good explanation for it, people will just see their retirement shrink and the cost of manufactured goods increasing and get angry.

I spent over an hour yesterday watching DJT do exactly that on TV.

Trump has a spoken plan, and an unspoken plan regarding these tariffs. The spoken one, being the return of american manufacturing. The unspoken is breaking the backs of these trading partners to eliminate their own tariffs, freeing trade globally which under no uncertain circumstances would improving living standards for everyone everywhere.

If that 2nd part works Trump will rank among the finest leaders humanity has ever known.

VDH also explains it well, plenty of his videos here and on YouTube. Have some faith in the process.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Thanks guys, but you are not Trump. Trump needs to explain why the gains are worth the pain. Most people aren't smart enough to understand what he's doing if he explained it. Without a good explanation for it, people will just see their retirement shrink and the cost of manufactured goods increasing and get angry.

Here you go, it was on TV and the internet live, and there are many videos posted.

https://x.com/AureliusStoic1/s.../1907546630644978108

As far as I’m concerned, Trump laid out and explained his plans clearly while campaigning. Then he got elected based on those plans. Then he immediately went about executing his plan even with a completely destructive and activist left. He has explained everything they are doing sometimes several times a day. He routinely holds press conferences and answers tons of questions. Most of America is onboard with what he is doing. Democratic Party is at 20% approval and heading south while they scream about closing the boarder, they scream about deporting criminal illegals, they scream about men in women’s sports and bathrooms, they scream about taking away parental rights so they can brainwash and mutilate our children, and they scream about cutting any fraud and waste in government like you were euthanizing half the population.

I’m now in my sixties. I believe president Trump is the best damn politician we have had in my lifetime. That’s right, I said that. Most honest, most transparent, and most pro-American. If he doesn’t save this country then we are completely fucked.