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Notes -
Happy tariffs eve, to those who celebrate.
With by all accounts the tariffs against Mexico and Canada going into action tomorrow, actually for real maybe probably this time, let's have a slice of cake and blow some party horns. This is quite a significant change of political fortunes - symbolically at least, and one would presume economically too, depending on how quickly the reshufflings happen or if this actually goes through at all. Since the 1880s, and more definitely since the 1980s, the world and its various regional economic blocs have moved towards the free trade of goods and services between nations. It has not been uniform or without reverses, but the trend has been unmistakable.
Often I like to wonder how a given event might be thought of 100 or 1000 years from now - will some future textbook see this as the high water mark of globalism, some point in the line of history that is forever after viewed with special significance? As much as people have claimed Donald Trump has been hindered by the Deep State, they seem to be slow to react to him ripping up one of the signature features of American hegemony (something he himself has contributed to, given that it's his free trade deal that is essentially being dissolved).
At the very least this is all going to be fascinating - one of the ironclad, universally agreed-upon tenets of a social science being put to the test. Markets have not reacted well so far, but that's as much a feature of groupthink as it is reflective of material reality. It's a good time to be a prospective PhD in Economics. You're about to have more than you could have ever hoped to work with.
So, have a Happy New Era. If this is actually happening, which I'm sure a lot of people are still unsure about (certainly I am). See you on the other side.
What odds do you place on this causing local depressions or a global recession?
I’d go for at least single digit.
The fed's already changed US Q1 growth forecasts from 2% to -3%: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
No. They did not update their forecasts by 5% because of today's news, and this is not an official forecast.
With understanding he is quite o'errun;
And by too great accomplishments undone:
With skill he vibrates his eternal tongue,
For ever most divinely in the wrong.
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It isn't a forecast at all - it is a nowcast. It is the Fed's best estimate of what is happening right now, but won't be officially reported until Q1 GDP comes out at the end of April (provisionally) and late June (as a final official number). The numbers are annualised quarterly numbers, so a 5 percentage point shift in growth means that (if the nowcast is correct) the economy is, right now, 1 1/4% smaller than predicted.
DOGE has fired about 35,000 people so far who won't have new jobs yet. In addition, about 75,000 workers are on the payroll but not working because they took the 8-month buyout, and 10,000 are locked out at USAID. That means 120,000 former government employees are no longer contributing to GDP. There are 133 million full-time workers in the US, so ~0.1 percentage points of the 1.2 point drop is due to government cuts.
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Trump's core appeal was an improved economy, particularly comparisons between the 2016-2020 economy and the 2021-2024 economy. Not that he has to run for re-election, but if he tanks the economy chasing tariffs, he might end up disgraced even among those who voted for him.
Negative partisans will still hate him less than Democrats, and his core will still love him, but he has a chance at destroying the future of his movement. It was already looking shaky whether MAGA could outlive Trump.
The US could easily crush Canada or Mexico in a trade war. It would do fine against the EU or China. It’s suicide to attempt all at once! The bargaining position of the US isn’t going to be better after a year of tariffs with neighbors that hate us and -10% gdp growth.
Fucking up the economy has got to be the one way to get congress to step up.
Congressional Republicans are sufficiently cowed or sycophantic that unless their base turns on Trump they're unlikely to yank his chain. And Trump has repeatedly proven that he can dictate reality to the base.
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For the life of me I don't understand why the Fed started cutting way before it was clear they got the job done.
The worse sin was the Fed not raising in 2021. But, sadly, I think the Fed is in the bag for one party.
I don't think it's so much that (The Fed did keep rates low in Trump's first term, after all.) as a bias toward "low rates good", belief that inflation was "transitory" and would correct itself more quickly than it did (Strictly speaking, it was, in the sense that inflation in the late 40s was also transitory.), and fear that raising rates would slow down the economy more than it did (Volker's rate hikes made for a nasty recession in the early 80s.). There's also the inconvenient problem that high rates are bad for the government's balance sheet.
Trump actually bullied Powell into that, IIRC.
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