6 ms·

The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. For various reasons CEOs either believe they can do more with less people, or that they can hire cheaper people in other g

by YZF 1y ago

The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. For various reasons CEOs either believe they can do more with less people, or that they can hire cheaper people in other geographies, or both. Businesses (tech or financials) don't seem to be telegraphing uncertainty, S&P 500 revenue is at all times high and trending up, earnings/profit all time highs and trending up, valuations all times high and trending up.

vkou 1y ago
> The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. That's true, but it didn't predate the election of a man who has made his understanding of tariffs and economics crystal clear in the months and years leading up to January 2025.
- mattmaroon 1y ago
  The tariffs this time are far in excess of anything he did previously or promised to do while running for office again and took nearly everyone by surprise though.
  - denismi 1y ago
    This pre-election BBC summary - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o - pretty clearly spells out what has eventuated, describing it as a "central campaign pledge": > Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.
    - trebligdivad 1y ago
      I don't think there's that much surprise at the tariffs on China; it's the tariffs on the rest of the world, especially friendly countries like Canada that are the big surprises. Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?
      - thunderfork 1y ago
        [dead]
      - burnerthrow008 1y ago
        > Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges? Only all the people who voted for them and all the people who voted against them?
        rusk 1y ago
        US elections have a shockingly low turnout compared to other countries so not the affirmative you were hoping for
        dgfitz 1y ago
        Maybe if Harris had made a few she would have won…
        const_cast 1y ago
        She did, everyone just sort of... pretended she didn't. So they could have plausible deniability for voting for Trump. See also: Harris is an elite! (Trump is more elite), Trump knows business (he's a pretty bad business man), Harris did nothing in office! (She was VP), Trump is the underdog! (He's literally already been president)
        dgfitz 1y ago
        She did? What was her platform? I never did figure it out.
        nobody9999 1y ago
        https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harris-key-issues-dg/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harr... https://www.deseret.com/politics/2024/09/09/harris-policy-platform-trump-policies/ https://www.deseret.com/politics/2024/09/09/harris-policy-pl... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-campaign-promises-2024-election/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-campaign-promises-... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/08/08/kamala-harris-policy-agenda/74703435007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/... All of the above were posted prior to the 2024 election.
    - esseph 1y ago
      That is not the 40-60-200% tariffs he has placed on things, depending on the day of the week. That uncertainty makes it very hard to manufacture goods or buy raw materials.
      - donalhunt 1y ago
        It also disrupts JIT supply chains. Companies make decisions with certain variables not being volatile. You now have a situation where one week the cost of a commodity is X and the following week it could be 2X. The butterfly effect across industries also cannot be predicted. Many industries also seem to be still recovering from the pandemic period with supply of spare parts still being de-prioritised over making parts available for new units. :/
  - jibal 1y ago
    It didn't take informed people by surprise. We still see people denying that Trump had anything to do with Project 2025, whereas honest informed people knew that he very much did.
    - mattmaroon 1y ago
      Nobody informed saw massive tariffs on India, Brazil, etc. If you were right the stock market wouldn’t have tanked because the smart money would have priced it in.
      - r2_pilot 1y ago
        Maybe the smart money shorted on the tank. After all, if you know there's going to be a downturn in a known time period that's a smart move. I believe it's worth analyzing who sold what and when, if not for insider trading, then at least for historical knowledge.
      - cmurf 1y ago
        [flagged]
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
mattmaroon 1y ago
There are other options, it’s not that simple. They may foresee an economic slowdown (they certainly say they do at every opportunity), they feel they are currently overstaffed, the ETF and hedge fund managers who own most of their stock are pressuring them to save money because they don’t like what they’re reading in the tea leaves, etc.
epistasis 1y ago
That was the entire point of hiking interest rates, to slow down the economy and stop inflation. Tariffs are universally acknowledged to cause inflation, and we would be in a recovery path if it weren't for the delays that tariffs are causing right now. It is rather interesting to see the difference in standards of accountability for different presidents. Some are responsible for the economy even if its behavior is not sure to their actions. Others are not responsible for poor economic performance even when taking actions universally agreed to harm the economy.
- jibal 1y ago
  Let's be clear on who has these different standards: primarily Republicans, members of the party whose lifeblood is hypocrisy.
  - blurbleblurble 1y ago
    They sold us out in the name of holy apocalyptic chaos and destruction
    - gdilla 1y ago
      All they had to do was prey on fragile white grievances, and it worked.
      - jibal 1y ago
        "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." -- LBJ
  - Der_Einzige 1y ago
    Remember what straws they had to grasp at to critique obama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controve...
NooneAtAll3 1y ago
S&P 500 or S&P 10, tho?
jaynate 1y ago
Nearly 10% of the s&p 500 value is one company- nvidia. The mag 7 make up a significant portion. Prosperity isn’t distributed, it’s concentrated and the stock market is not even close to the only measure of the health of the American economy.
cyanydeez 1y ago
Market bubbles combined with parallel political bubbles are probably the real black swan event coming down the pike
- stirfish 1y ago
  What is a political bubble? I googled it, but I'm getting definitions closer to "my news feed only shows me what I want to see"
  - Yizahi 1y ago
    If I had to guess - "political bubble (bursts)" is when an extremely incompetent and/or radical politician suddenly is elected to one of the top posts in a country. So it's like a closed off boiling pot - incompetent radical has 5% of the electoral base and nothing happens, then 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40%, still nothing, and then one day he "suddenly" crosses 50% threshold and bubble bursts, he is now in charge for real. For example in France their own Le-Trump aka Marine Le Pen had 41% votes last election cycle, so nothing really happened and system centrists won again, politics remained moderate and predictable. But if she or her ideological successor even takes 50%... hooboy, EU will see some Orbanification just like USA does today.
  - cyanydeez 1y ago
    Start with the idea of political capital and end with the monumental loss of value and trust in the political system

by YZF 1y ago

vkou 1y ago

> The hiring slowdown predates tariffs. That's true, but it didn't predate the election of a man who has made his understanding of tariffs and economics crystal clear in the months and years leading up to January 2025.

mattmaroon 1y ago
The tariffs this time are far in excess of anything he did previously or promised to do while running for office again and took nearly everyone by surprise though.
- denismi 1y ago
  This pre-election BBC summary - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o - pretty clearly spells out what has eventuated, describing it as a "central campaign pledge": > Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.
  - trebligdivad 1y ago
    I don't think there's that much surprise at the tariffs on China; it's the tariffs on the rest of the world, especially friendly countries like Canada that are the big surprises. Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?
    - thunderfork 1y ago
      [dead]
    - burnerthrow008 1y ago
      > Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges? Only all the people who voted for them and all the people who voted against them?
      - rusk 1y ago
        US elections have a shockingly low turnout compared to other countries so not the affirmative you were hoping for
      - dgfitz 1y ago
        Maybe if Harris had made a few she would have won…
        const_cast 1y ago
        She did, everyone just sort of... pretended she didn't. So they could have plausible deniability for voting for Trump. See also: Harris is an elite! (Trump is more elite), Trump knows business (he's a pretty bad business man), Harris did nothing in office! (She was VP), Trump is the underdog! (He's literally already been president)
        dgfitz 1y ago
        She did? What was her platform? I never did figure it out.
        nobody9999 1y ago
        https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harris-key-issues-dg/ https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harr... https://www.deseret.com/politics/2024/09/09/harris-policy-platform-trump-policies/ https://www.deseret.com/politics/2024/09/09/harris-policy-pl... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-campaign-promises-2024-election/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-campaign-promises-... https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/08/08/kamala-harris-policy-agenda/74703435007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/... All of the above were posted prior to the 2024 election.
  - esseph 1y ago
    That is not the 40-60-200% tariffs he has placed on things, depending on the day of the week. That uncertainty makes it very hard to manufacture goods or buy raw materials.
    - donalhunt 1y ago
      It also disrupts JIT supply chains. Companies make decisions with certain variables not being volatile. You now have a situation where one week the cost of a commodity is X and the following week it could be 2X. The butterfly effect across industries also cannot be predicted. Many industries also seem to be still recovering from the pandemic period with supply of spare parts still being de-prioritised over making parts available for new units. :/
- jibal 1y ago
  It didn't take informed people by surprise. We still see people denying that Trump had anything to do with Project 2025, whereas honest informed people knew that he very much did.
  - mattmaroon 1y ago
    Nobody informed saw massive tariffs on India, Brazil, etc. If you were right the stock market wouldn’t have tanked because the smart money would have priced it in.
    - r2_pilot 1y ago
      Maybe the smart money shorted on the tank. After all, if you know there's going to be a downturn in a known time period that's a smart move. I believe it's worth analyzing who sold what and when, if not for insider trading, then at least for historical knowledge.
    - cmurf 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]

mattmaroon 1y ago

There are other options, it’s not that simple. They may foresee an economic slowdown (they certainly say they do at every opportunity), they feel they are currently overstaffed, the ETF and hedge fund managers who own most of their stock are pressuring them to save money because they don’t like what they’re reading in the tea leaves, etc.

epistasis 1y ago

That was the entire point of hiking interest rates, to slow down the economy and stop inflation. Tariffs are universally acknowledged to cause inflation, and we would be in a recovery path if it weren't for the delays that tariffs are causing right now. It is rather interesting to see the difference in standards of accountability for different presidents. Some are responsible for the economy even if its behavior is not sure to their actions. Others are not responsible for poor economic performance even when taking actions universally agreed to harm the economy.

jibal 1y ago
Let's be clear on who has these different standards: primarily Republicans, members of the party whose lifeblood is hypocrisy.
- blurbleblurble 1y ago
  They sold us out in the name of holy apocalyptic chaos and destruction
  - gdilla 1y ago
    All they had to do was prey on fragile white grievances, and it worked.
    - jibal 1y ago
      "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." -- LBJ
- Der_Einzige 1y ago
  Remember what straws they had to grasp at to critique obama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_tan_suit_controve...

NooneAtAll3 1y ago

S&P 500 or S&P 10, tho?

jaynate 1y ago

Nearly 10% of the s&p 500 value is one company- nvidia. The mag 7 make up a significant portion. Prosperity isn’t distributed, it’s concentrated and the stock market is not even close to the only measure of the health of the American economy.

cyanydeez 1y ago

Market bubbles combined with parallel political bubbles are probably the real black swan event coming down the pike

stirfish 1y ago
What is a political bubble? I googled it, but I'm getting definitions closer to "my news feed only shows me what I want to see"
- Yizahi 1y ago
  If I had to guess - "political bubble (bursts)" is when an extremely incompetent and/or radical politician suddenly is elected to one of the top posts in a country. So it's like a closed off boiling pot - incompetent radical has 5% of the electoral base and nothing happens, then 10%, then 20%, 30%, 40%, still nothing, and then one day he "suddenly" crosses 50% threshold and bubble bursts, he is now in charge for real. For example in France their own Le-Trump aka Marine Le Pen had 41% votes last election cycle, so nothing really happened and system centrists won again, politics remained moderate and predictable. But if she or her ideological successor even takes 50%... hooboy, EU will see some Orbanification just like USA does today.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  Start with the idea of political capital and end with the monumental loss of value and trust in the political system