Cut the rates Powell!

No other person on the planet would have been short-sighted and unfocused enough to instantaneously inflict global tariffs, with no study or planning, the way Trump did.

Even the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed by Congress, with debate, not executive action.

 

A lot of that isn't what I meant stuff hitting amongst the Pro-Tariff right trying to vaguely preserve their reputations (and likely failing, as that ship has already sailed):

 

And the idea that Dems are only against it because it's Trump but would be ok with it if a Dem had done it... Ridiculous. No Dem has ever done what Trump has done with regards to tariffs. That's because no Dem has been stupid enough to do what Trump has done.

 

I did not expect this:

 

How? How did he mishandle COVID? What policy decisions did you disagree with? Provide specifics, not platitudes. And stop avoiding the question.

Do you really think the unemployment rate during COVID in 2020 would have been lower under Biden? It wouldn’t have. In fact it probably would have been even higher because Biden would have tried more aggressive lockdowns. Almost all countries controlled by the left had a higher unemployment rate than the U.S.

If Trump was so bad on COVID, why did the U.S. recover (even before Trump left in January 2021) well before Democrat controlled Europe and Canada? Again, answer the question.

You just hate Trump so much that you could never view anything he has done from any type of objective perspective.

 

5% more favorable than the Black Plague? So we got that going for us.

 

I honestly want to meet those 9% of people. That conversation would be fascinating.

 

Pretty sure he has a form of autism that wasn't diagnosed obviously because of the time he was brought up. He has zero emotional intelligence, it's all muscle.memory based on his experiences in life. I think that's why he likes Elon so much...

 

Hmm certainly could be. Though whatever is his reason for acting like this, it clearly attracts followers.

 

Can't be. Idiot RFK stated as fact that Autism did not exist back when he (and Trump) were young. Despite being diagnosed in the colonies in the 1720's and the French defining a definition for it in the 1800's, it simply did not exist in RFK-brain-damage, so Trump is definitely NOT Autistic.

 

That's only until Trump realizes that the dead man can't defend himself, and then he starts blaming the dead guy for the colors and music (and the economy).

 

More accurately, tariffs are a cool idea when you have a really good reason, but not when you are an idiot who thinks that higher tariffs will enable the U.S. to pay off the federal debt without costing American citizens anything. Hint: American citizens WILL PAY the tariff, one way or the other. Typically, there are no winners in a trade war (although some countries will lose more than others). Trump seems to be working hard to make sure that the U.S. loses the most.

Don't forget that this is not Trump's first attempt at tariffs. In his first term, 92% of the tariffs he collected went to offset the damage he did to American farmers. So he caused America's food prices to go up, while farmers had to get checks from the gov't. Real smart, okey-dokie.

 

Adding that some people are incapable of making fine distinctions. There is a difference between targeted tariffs and massive across the board tariffs especially the absurdity of imposing tariffs on countries that have a trade imbalance with the US because they export products that aren't produced in the US like coffee.

 

Statement comes out at 2pm. Expectation is that they will do what they do well, and that is nothing.

What to Watch at the Federal Reserve’s May Meeting - The New York Times

The Federal Reserve is set to extend its pause on interest rate cuts on Wednesday amid concerns that President Trump’s tariffs will unleash fresh inflationary pressures while also hurting growth, a tricky combination that could lead to painful trade-offs for the central bank.

A decision to stand pat would keep interest rates at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, a level reached in December after a series of cuts in the second half of 2024.

Fed officials are in wait-and-see mode for now. They are closely tracking the incoming data for signs that consumer prices are rising again after a multiyear battle to keep them at bay, or that an otherwise solid labor market is starting to weaken. What they need is greater clarity on what, exactly, Mr. Trump has in store for the economy after a whirlwind of tariff announcements, government spending cuts and deportations.

The Fed will release its latest policy statement on Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Washington. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, will hold a news conference right after.

 

Just a reminder there is a difference between the targeted tariffs supported by Democrats and the irrational across the board tariffs supported by one certain Republican with the ability to set policy. After Republicans learned the lesson of the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the Republican Party has been the party of free trade. Although they don't have the balls to publicly disagree with their Dear Leader I suspect that the overwhelming majority of Republican office holders probably support the views of Ronald Reagan rather than economically ignorant POTUS who is leading the US to redux of what happened following Smoot Hawley.
The actual Republican view on tariffs.

 

Reagan was a huge protectionist....using mostly trade restrictions & quotas. &, of course every job saved cost 100s of 1000s of dollars.
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa819.pdf

 

Rates unchanged.

 

Hurry up and wait!

No action. Cant blame them. Hard to respond to an irrational actor in the market.

Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady for May 2025: What to know.

 

Maybe Reagan's support of free trade was more political rhetoric than actual policy but when it comes to protectionism the Gipper's policies didn't come remotely close to what Trump is doing.