Our consumer economy which is more than other civilized nations depends on people buying stuff they don't need with money they don't have Take food, for example. The average l American female has a 38.7 INCH waist and the WHO says that a 35 inch is OBES. Does she need other buy more food more cheaply? Actually, she needs very few bites and calories-- for years to come. Same with her fat spouse This is the issue. Food and beverage consumption will decline about 25% -- thank you Ozempic & Mounjaro.-- and this will harm the economy. Read the Anti-WEllness Diet on Amazon-- free fast ( one hour) and funny, but you won't be laughing long.
Treasury Sec’y Scott Bessent continues to pursue a quite interesting communications strategy around the higher-consumer-prices problem generated by the Trump tariffs. Instead of the initial admin strategy of denying, against all evidence, that these import taxes would be passed forward to American consumers, they’ve shifted to arguing that people care more about…I’m not exactly sure what…than about lower prices."
In my very humble opinion, Bessent is fully on board with Trump's personal revenge tour on everyone, the complete destruction of government and regulations, as well as the poaching mission Musk is on. That said, Bessent has said things that Trump completely negated minutes later. Which begs the question... Is Trump all there? After all, if it was proper to question Joe Biden's lucidity, then... what about Trump's? I suspect, for a lot of the people in this cabinet, what is being done is just fine by them and the calculation is that Musk and Trump will take the heat - not them.
Three interesting pieces in my news post for today that relate to the issues raised here. You can locate them by doing a page search for these headlines:
-America’s automakers aren’t rushing to move production to US factories to avoid tariffs
-Bessent says correction "healthy" for markets that had been "euphoric"
-Wall Street hoped Scott Bessent would keep Trump in check. He had other ideas.
-Treasury Secretary says he’s ‘not worried about the markets’
The more I dig into Bessent's past the more concerned I become.
Leaving aside his "I worked with George Soros so I'm a great trader" schtick, he has NO Treasury Dept. experience. Indeed, he doesn't even have any sell side (bank trading) experience.
I'm still hoping to find some hint that he has some clue about and concern for the import of his job as US Treasury Sec., but I have yet to find it.
Consider this:
"Y: You have taught several residential college seminars at Yale over the years. Were the classes made up of economics and math majors?
B: I’ve taught three classes at Yale: Twentieth Century Financial Booms and Busts; Hedge Funds: History, Theory and Practice; and my favorite, about the financial panic of 2007 to 2009. I was teaching it in real time, so the kids were trying to figure out what was going on, which made it exciting. Half of the students were economics majors, but the other half was more eclectic. A woman who was an art history major got the second-highest grade in the hedge funds class."
The US under Biden was at full employment so buying cheap things from abroad was, well, cheap. Making them more expensive does nothing except make them more expensive. If it means things will now be made in the US it means you need to stop producing something else: but tariffs distort market signals so you will be worse off. If you keep buying the stuff from abroad you will be worse off because it costs more. If you substitute it for something else you will be worse off because you will be buying your second choice.
Are we at risk for our businesses to be compelled to accept cryptocurrency as payment for goods & services? Is it likely that our bank accounts can be converted to crypto, without insurance against profit-taking by big investors? Am I being paranoid, or is everyone really picking on me?
Trump has consistently promised the unlikely and the impossible and fallen short. The divergence between the actual and predicted consumer confidence could the first (and welcome) sign that people are wising up.
Yes, they've shifted the story from "prices drop on day 1" to "the pain is worth it." But what is the "it?" Higher wages? Cheap something or other? An amorphous "great America?" All we've got so far is claiming the Gulf of Mexico as our own, in name only, in some minds.
Our consumer economy which is more than other civilized nations depends on people buying stuff they don't need with money they don't have Take food, for example. The average l American female has a 38.7 INCH waist and the WHO says that a 35 inch is OBES. Does she need other buy more food more cheaply? Actually, she needs very few bites and calories-- for years to come. Same with her fat spouse This is the issue. Food and beverage consumption will decline about 25% -- thank you Ozempic & Mounjaro.-- and this will harm the economy. Read the Anti-WEllness Diet on Amazon-- free fast ( one hour) and funny, but you won't be laughing long.
"Secretary Bessent’s Highly Unusual Lemonade Brew
Treasury Sec’y Scott Bessent continues to pursue a quite interesting communications strategy around the higher-consumer-prices problem generated by the Trump tariffs. Instead of the initial admin strategy of denying, against all evidence, that these import taxes would be passed forward to American consumers, they’ve shifted to arguing that people care more about…I’m not exactly sure what…than about lower prices."
In my very humble opinion, Bessent is fully on board with Trump's personal revenge tour on everyone, the complete destruction of government and regulations, as well as the poaching mission Musk is on. That said, Bessent has said things that Trump completely negated minutes later. Which begs the question... Is Trump all there? After all, if it was proper to question Joe Biden's lucidity, then... what about Trump's? I suspect, for a lot of the people in this cabinet, what is being done is just fine by them and the calculation is that Musk and Trump will take the heat - not them.
Three interesting pieces in my news post for today that relate to the issues raised here. You can locate them by doing a page search for these headlines:
-America’s automakers aren’t rushing to move production to US factories to avoid tariffs
-Bessent says correction "healthy" for markets that had been "euphoric"
-Wall Street hoped Scott Bessent would keep Trump in check. He had other ideas.
-Treasury Secretary says he’s ‘not worried about the markets’
https://rimaregasblog42.substack.com/p/things-musk-and-trump-did-day-54
The more I dig into Bessent's past the more concerned I become.
Leaving aside his "I worked with George Soros so I'm a great trader" schtick, he has NO Treasury Dept. experience. Indeed, he doesn't even have any sell side (bank trading) experience.
I'm still hoping to find some hint that he has some clue about and concern for the import of his job as US Treasury Sec., but I have yet to find it.
Consider this:
"Y: You have taught several residential college seminars at Yale over the years. Were the classes made up of economics and math majors?
B: I’ve taught three classes at Yale: Twentieth Century Financial Booms and Busts; Hedge Funds: History, Theory and Practice; and my favorite, about the financial panic of 2007 to 2009. I was teaching it in real time, so the kids were trying to figure out what was going on, which made it exciting. Half of the students were economics majors, but the other half was more eclectic. A woman who was an art history major got the second-highest grade in the hedge funds class."
source: https://yalealumnimagazine.org/articles/4159-scott-bessent
He's cosplaying as a Hedge Fund guy and he managed to find the only modern POTUS ever that would be fooled by such.
His degree is in Poli Sci.!
The US under Biden was at full employment so buying cheap things from abroad was, well, cheap. Making them more expensive does nothing except make them more expensive. If it means things will now be made in the US it means you need to stop producing something else: but tariffs distort market signals so you will be worse off. If you keep buying the stuff from abroad you will be worse off because it costs more. If you substitute it for something else you will be worse off because you will be buying your second choice.
Why did you vote for that?
Are we at risk for our businesses to be compelled to accept cryptocurrency as payment for goods & services? Is it likely that our bank accounts can be converted to crypto, without insurance against profit-taking by big investors? Am I being paranoid, or is everyone really picking on me?
Trump has consistently promised the unlikely and the impossible and fallen short. The divergence between the actual and predicted consumer confidence could the first (and welcome) sign that people are wising up.
Yes, they've shifted the story from "prices drop on day 1" to "the pain is worth it." But what is the "it?" Higher wages? Cheap something or other? An amorphous "great America?" All we've got so far is claiming the Gulf of Mexico as our own, in name only, in some minds.
I learn a lot from your posts!