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This administration is either intentionally performing market manipulation or is simply incompetent. Either way, we all lose. Hope the general populous is happ
by voidhorse 2y ago
This administration is either intentionally performing market manipulation or is simply incompetent. Either way, we all lose.
Hope the general populous is happy with their choice, lol.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI don't know — depending on if it gets bad enough, last time we got a New Deal out of it.
- iancmceachern 2y agoAfter millions died of starvation
- enoch_r 2y agoMillions did not die of starvation during the Great Depression in the US. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12297/how-many-people-in-the-us-starved-to-death-during-the-great-depression https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/12297/how-many-p...
- hiddencost 2y agoWe got a world war out of it as well
- gadders 2y ago..which did more to boost the economy than the New Deal.
- billy99k 2y ago[flagged]
- Frederation 2y agoYea, we wont hold our breath.
- touwer 2y agoNot true and you know it
- skippyboxedhero 2y agoI am not sure why people need to believe that no-one can disagree with their closely-held political views. The market is overvalued, it has been overvalued for a long time. It is not possible for this to continue forever, the market going down is not a sign that the world is ending. When the market went up under Trump, the same media said it had nothing to do with him...this isn't a real point of view, it is emotional, ex-post rationalisation to justify political views. Just generally, you can't complain about the government spending $1m on a packet of nails AND complain when those subsidies are removed. Equally, Biden had the same goals as Trump with some of his actions but he did it through massive corporate subsidies...again, do you think corporate subsidies are preferable? Is it possible or wise for the US to grow productively through growth in low-skill labour and reduction in wages? Again, probably not. Either way, these are things people can disagree about. The ex-post reasoning is hilarious, a few years ago it was wall-to-wall doom on here, now nobody can think that Biden did anything wrong, lol. I wonder if some people are just unable to recollect what they believed in the past?
- CogitoCogito 2y ago> you can't complain about the government spending $1m on a packet of nails Has the government spent a million dollars on a packet of nails?
- laidoffamazon 2y agoNo, it was much better. Growth was solid for the entire tenure. Unemployment reached 50 year lows and prime age employment hit 25 year highs.
- cyberlurker 2y agoThat’s all true, but there was high inflation and temporarily high gas prices caused in part by the War in Ukraine and OPEC cutting production. The difference is obviously these were not self inflicted like whatever the Trump administration is doing.
- laidoffamazon 2y agoCorrect
- billy99k 2y agohttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-... I will leave this here. I wish I could pin it. It's also very disingenuous to proclaim that the economy is 'terrible' and blame someone that's been in office for 2 months. I'm not just going to assume ignorance on this topic, since HN seemingly has more intelligent people commenting here, but economic changes don't happen this quickly and are a direct result of the state of the economy prior to Trump coming into office.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThere was absolutely a cost-of-living crisis under Biden. Those didn’t show up in core inflation, but there were obvious in total inflation, and the party line of it being transient—which I bought at the time—was wrong. > disingenuous to proclaim that the economy is 'terrible' and blame someone that's been in office for 2 months He’s enacted massive tax increases and trade disruptions by fiat. You can see the stock market crash when he speaks. Biden and Democrats overstimulated the economy in ‘22. Trump is trashing it in 2 months. If you have doubts, listen to him, Musk and Bessent on whether their policies will cause recession.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> last administration wasn't much better..lol. Lots of layoffs and a general down turn of the economy San Francisco tech saw layoffs. The rest of the economy saw job growth every single month [1] and real GDP growth every quarter except Q1 ‘22 [2]. To the extent there was a fly in the ointment it was a cost-of-living crisis, and Trump seems intent on driving that into overdrive with his tax increases. (Pronounced tariffs in MAGAland.) [1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ces0000000001?output_view=net_1mth https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/ces0000000001?output_view=ne... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1Q225SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1Q225SBEA
- lillecarl 2y agoHonestly though, as someone from Sweden my belief is that you guys could pay a bit more in tax to get social services functioning across the country again. But not the way these muppets are doing it and all other stupid things they're doing.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThe Trump agenda is to lower taxes on millionaires like me by cutting Medicaid to the poor and raising grocery-store prices with regressive tariffs. All of the other crap is basically distraction getting slapped down in the courts.
- lillecarl 2y agoWeirdly enough Sweden has fallen victim to the same thing, a lot of rich man's taxes are gone, like inheritance taxes and low property taxes and such. We've gone from 100 billionaires to 500+ in 20 years, and it's not because of natural growth... Note that that's SEK billionaire so $100M+-ish Yay democracy
- leereeves 2y ago> The rest of the economy saw job growth every single month [1] and real GDP growth every quarter except Q1 ‘22 Neither of those "accomplishments" are impressive or unusual. The population is growing, so jobs and GDP tend to grow as well. Negative job or GDP growth are both extremely rare events that happened only during the covid pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis, 9/11, etc.
- mempko 2y agoYou do realize the layoffs in the tech sector were because of Trump's tax cuts right? There was a provision that kicked in 2022 that made engineers more expensive. Companies could no longer expense engineers the way they did before and had to amortize their cost over 5 years. Startups were especially hit hard with higher tax bills. This is why politics matters folks. Always read the fine print.
- wahern 2y agoThat may have been part of it, but over hiring during the pandemic plus the disappearance of cheap money with increased interest rates had at least as much to do with it.
- mempko 2y agoThis is the common narrative but you have to ask yourself why it makes sense, because it doesn't. Interest rates going up doesn't hurt everyone, some benefit! Interest rates going up benefit savers and hurt debtors. A lot of the large companies that laid people off had huge amounts of cash reserves and benefit from higher interest rates. These were highly profitable companies laying people off. Neither over-hiring or interest rates explains this. What does explain it are sudden increase in costs (like taxes).
- mempko 2y agoIt's simple incompetence. The whole lot are economically illiterate. Musk is out there talking about the US going bankrupt. Trump is saying other countries will pay for the tariffs. It's mind numbing. This is why you can't have business people running a country. A country is not like a business or a household.
- philk10 2y agoor have people that played business people on TV shows...
- gsanderson 2y agoThis. He was playing a character. People think it was a documentary.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Musk is out there talking about the US going bankrupt Musk is particularly dark—he was born in South Africa. He knows how this winds up. Yet he seems adamant to recapitulate the ANC’s corrupt playbook.
- pfisherman 2y agoSimple explanation. Musk has lost it. His long term drug (ketamine) use has resulted in a psychotic break, which we are watching play out publicly.
- ajross 2y agoExactly. And the clear proof is the ridiculous dance around tariff policy. Tarrifs were a clear fait accompli, promised in the campaign and scheduled the moment the administration took office. Then the market tanked right as they were about to take effect. Then there was a delay! Then they were only going to apply to goods not covered by NAFTA^H^H^HUSMTC! Which is all goods, basically. So no tariffs. Except they're still on the books. That's not a rationalist trade policy. At its most charitable, it's a failed attempted at brinksmanship. More likely it's just not understanding how markets work and in particular how that is reflected in the stock market (which, if not "rationalist" per se, is a lot more so than the administration). Incompetence either way.
- NomDePlum 2y agoI suspect it's incompetent market manipulation.
- Rastonbury 2y agoI think it's possible they are telling their friends of these random policy flip flops to trade the news things like tariff exemptions and crypto reserve. But it's pretty poor politics, businesses hate it, elites see their stocks go down. I don't care what concessions Mexico, Canada or China give if tariffs raise my cost of living and interest rates are kept high
- NomDePlum 2y agoI would be amazed if there is not insider trading going on. The incompetent part I'm referring to is driving down the mid and future value of US stock. Reputational damage is often something that can't be reversed.
- iamtheworstdev 2y agoIt's intentional. Anyone thinking otherwise hasn't been listening to Treasury Sec Bissent talk these last two months. The goal to lower prices is to "increase supply and lower demand," and yes that's a direct quote. You don't lower demand by asking people to stop buying things. You lower demand by reducing people's ability to buy things.
- bad_user 2y agoI mean, sure, inducing a recession works for lowering prices, but it's freaking stupid and makes people poorer.
- ModernMech 2y agoIt's a stupid decision from the perspective of the people getting poorer, but what about the people who are getting richer? It' a great decision for them.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y agoHow do tariffs fit into the stated goal of “increasing supply?”
- yieldcrv 2y agoEntrepreneurs are supposed to offer domestic versions at their own risk
- SlightlyLeftPad 2y agoWith how quickly the tariffs are added and removed, if I were an entrepreneur I’d find it difficult to lean in on a risky investment that may be undermined or undercut by the eventual and sudden removal of tariffs. I’m curious how this plays out in reality.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
- mmastrac 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if there's an inner circle buy/sell club around the tariff announcements. There's no economic sense to pushing them hard and then hitting the brakes so much unless you are actively looking to manipulate things. The on/off tariffs are just as bad as imposing them for market confidence (if not worse).
- creato 2y agoThe simple explanation is they want the tariffs, but get scared by the blowback, but can't just give up, because that would look even more dumb than it already does.
- Keyframe 2y agoThere's a theory circulating about it's all a show to provoke rate cuts. Theory behind theory is rate cut period boosted the previous run, so it ought to boost another one?
- rayiner 2y agoThe administration is trying to definancialize the economy. Everything points in that direction, from tariffs to foreign policy moves that would reduce the dollar’s status as a reserve currency.
- betaby 2y ago> definancialize the economy Not sure what does it mean in the context of the economy in general.
- rayiner 2y agoThe point is to change the incentives to favor building things in the U.S. rather than increasing profits by building things overseas. Consider what high tariffs would do, for example, to Apple. Since Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers, and I’d argue in the long run it hurts innovation. But imagine if Apple had to be an exorbitant tariff for every foreign-made iPhone. Had such a policy been in place 20 years ago, we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country.
- betaby 2y ago> Tim Cook has focused on increasing profits by building a hyper-optimized Chinese supply chain. That doesn’t help American workers Agree, and that's kind of obvious. > we may have dramatically changed the direction the cell phone industry went in the country Not sure. Even less sure how instantaneous and very tariffs can help with that. Also it's not clear how that less of the financealisation.
- rayiner 2y agoThis comment struck me as interesting re: financialization. https://x.com/ces921/status/1886037535283143162 https://x.com/ces921/status/1886037535283143162
- agumonkey 2y agoBoth, they're incompetently trying to pull a big scam. It's said that Trump did a lot of shady stuff in real estate, same for musk .. so they probably thought they could sell cutting everything federal as a 'new american age' while ensuring massive profits on the sell-off. Sometimes I worry that, somehow, their reckless actions land onto a tangibly visible positive outcome, and they would brag about it until they die.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoMy neighbours and I have been buying up cropland on the cheap as a result of the trade war. As an ethical move, we’re only buying in Trump-voting counties from registered Republicans. But at the end of the day, there is massive pain in that sector, particularly among soybean farmers and dairy farmers close to Canada, and it’s directly attributable to Trump.
- leereeves 2y ago> As an ethical move, we’re only buying in Trump-voting counties from registered Republicans. That's a strange kind of ethics, refusing to buy from Democrats who want to sell. It's like you're boycotting Democrats.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> refusing to buy from Democrats who want to sell These are distressed properties. They’re not for sale by the original owners, who probably would prefer to keep them. (Their creditors, on the other hand, want to get paid.)
- rayiner 2y ago[flagged]
- miohtama 2y agoArthur Hayes, the founder of Bitmex, argues that Trump tries to manufacture recession to get lower interest rates (for his real estate empire) https://cryptohayes.medium.com/kiss-of-death-916ae30fedc5 https://cryptohayes.medium.com/kiss-of-death-916ae30fedc5
- doctorpangloss 2y agoNot just Trump, but every truly rich person in the US has described “high interest rates” as their number one complaint with the economy. The problem is that these people complaining about interest rates are stupid.
- Balgair 2y ago"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." -Hanlon's razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
- deepGem 2y agoI don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. I have heard the words peasant class come up quite often in the tech circles. Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? At the risk of getting downvoted let me posit a different narrative. What if the past governments were just propping up growth by increasing government spending. The facts that are coming out now point in this direction. Unemployment numbers that were fudged and recalled by nearly 1M on two occasions. 35% government hiring in the last 3 years. What if this is the unwinding that was needed long ago but is happening now. Yes tariffs are a net negative for the US economy, but there is no guarantee that tariffs will stay as we saw with the Canada and Mexico tariffs. So may be, the government is not completely incompetent. This data from Apollo management points to a not so bleak picture. https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DC_Proposals.pdf https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/DC_...
- Bhilai 2y ago> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. I have heard the words peasant class come up quite often in the tech circles. Why is this ? Aren't you part of the general populace ? I think the HN crowd (and technologists) are generally better informed on the economy and the nuances on economic growth, inflation, stock market etc. and that's probably the point OP is making. Dont get me wrong, a lot of technologists did vote for Trump.
- rayiner 2y ago> I don't know why there is this general vibe amongst technologists that they are somehow far superior in their thought process compared to the general populace. It’s a recent shift. Historically, “technologists” were skeptical of the supposed knowledge of “experts.” When Linus built Linux, the “experts”—the guys with PhDs—said the future was microkernels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb.... Linus was right. But I feel like today techies would’ve mocked him for being just a student arguing with a tenured professor on a subject in the professor’s field. Opposition to free trade has been building for 25 years: https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-1999 https://www.britannica.com/event/Seattle-WTO-protests-of-199.... We used to make routers in California and sell them to China. Now we make them in China and Americans drive Uber. Economists tell us that this is efficient, but the public isn’t required to believe them. And it’s fine to try a different approach to see what happens.
- tmaly 2y agoIf you look at all the revisions to the employment numbers over the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion that a downturn was inevitable.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoThe timing though.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago[dead]
- andrewla 2y agoIs there a specific aspect of the administration's policies which you believe are causing this? Candidates would include "actual impact of tariffs enacted" or "uncertainty about future tariffs" or the same things but with "geopolitical decisions" instead of tariffs. Or similarly "fiscal solvency" or "profile of government spending" etc. It's all well and good to make untestable post facto explanations based on vibes but I'd be interested in whether you (or other people in the thread) have specifics, so we can think about backtesting and prediction. Do you predict that these phenomena will have long-term implications or if they will self-correct? Any assertion of the causation of a market movement is itself pretty economically tenuous. I think any of the above policies can be criticized on principled grounds; if the stock market is the arbiter of whether economic policy is correct I do not think that anyone would be happy with where this leads.
- xnx 2y agoThe stock market is based on and is a measure of vibes/confidence. Deliberately diminishing the importance of the richest and most powerful nation in the world doesn't seem like the move if you want to inspire confidence.
- Aunche 2y agoTariff may be worse for the economy, but threatening tariffs as a "negotiating tactic" with Canada and Mexico is just plain stupid. Unless if they have insider information, businesses simply have no idea how to operate. For example, it would take years to build a factory, and they don't want to sink hundreds of millions in a factory in the US if tariffs don't actually go through or vice versa.
- iAMkenough 2y agoOf the general populous, there are more people who didn't vote for the current administration than people who did.