site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 7, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Breaking: all reciprocal tariffs halted for 90 days EXCEPT on China. Tariff rates over 100% on Chinese exports.

So it seems like it’s more of a targeted war against China specifically? Likely giving other nations time to choose (with us or against us), and slapping the nations who chose to align with China with huge tariffs in 90 days.

Interesting choice to make as a country then… do we want cheap goods from China but lose access to the American market? Or do we want to be able to sell to Americans?

The next “stick” will be weaponizing the financial system against China-aligned nations, while China dumps treasuries and tries to spark a financial crisis.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-holds-back-retaliation-opts-strategic-messaging-through-white-paper-trade

Likely giving other nations time to choose (with us or against us), and slapping the nations who chose to align with China with huge tariffs in 90 days.

If that was the plan, it's pretty dumb. First you can't really un-declare a (commercial) war. Second, if you want people to side with you, you don't start a fight with them. Third, it puts everyone except China and the US in a better negociating position with those two, because they can play one against the other.

So it seems like it’s more of a targeted war against China specifically?

Imputing any kind of reasoning behind anything Trump does seems insane to me.

These sort of comments are popular but don’t make sense to me. Trump is simultaneously a political genius who can win two elections with the deck stacked completely against him, and also a blathering idiot with the critical reasoning and planning skills of a 3rd grader.

Not to mention his cabinet being comprised with very intelligent people and industry veterans…

Most people who are geniuses in one area are kind of mediocre in other areas. Trump's a genius at entertaining and getting votes, and he's terrible at economic policy. Why are those two particularly related?

a blathering idiot with the critical reasoning and planning skills of a 3rd grader.

These things massively aid him in being able to lie and make unachievable promises without doubting himself. If he was smarter there's no way he'd say the things he says or he would be plagued with doubts and counterarguments. There's no way he'd have got to where he's got.

So you have no theory of mind for Trump, his team or his supporters?

That seems greatly distinct from what he said; "Trump is running on vibes and obsessions rather than means-ends reasoning" is a theory of mind, and an analogous statement is true of many people (at least in a lot of situations) regardless of whether it's true or not in this particular case - this is the simulacrum levels 3 and especially 4.

I have read hundreds of different pet theories on the "strategy" behind what has happened with the tariffs, and the vast majority of the time, I've come to the conclusion that the theory is basically a reflection of the writer's own bias.

I think in all likelihood this is simply a result of everyone agreeing (even his supporters) that you simply can't trust anything that Trump says as a reflection of his own motivation. I'll add a caveat, though, that there are some people who insist that his actions are entirely consistent with his rhetoric, but I have not yet been convinced.

So it's not so much "no theory of mind", as much as "no mind worth theorizing about". It's intellectual terrorism. People are bending over backwards spending precious thought cycles that could be spent on work or with their family trying to rationalize what can only be reasonably described as irrational.

I'll even add my own pet theory to the end here: Trump wants to push buttons and feel powerful. House Republicans have blessed him with the "tariff" button. Trump pushes it. Trump feels powerful. The end.

(Edit: this sort of dovetails with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory, first associated with Nixon. Maybe great for foreign policy, but when practiced on your own electorate, I think "intellectual terrorism" is a fair descriptor.)

Apparently call volumes spiked about 10m before the report.

Maybe this is Trump's plan to balance the deficit -- create massive economics swings and profit by whispering hints about it.

Interesting choice to make as a country then… do we want cheap goods from China but lose access to the American market? Or do we want to be able to sell to Americans?

I'm not sure I follow. A Vietnamese firm can import mostly-finished doo-dads from China, do the final step and then send them off to the US.

As of now, sure. But if it’s really a trade war against China, then an obvious escalation would be tariffing any other country that trades with China. Encourage other countries to turn their backs on China to keep access to US market.

What a huge rally. I am wishing I had been more aggressive. I bought on the dip on Monday. FNGA , which is a 3x tech etf, but I should have bought some 0-days when the story broke.

This is why you always got to keep some powder on the sidelines. You can do nothing for a year and then the opportunity arises 100x your money.

This shows the importance of not being whipsawed when investing. Stick with the plan if you're DCA (in which you generally want declines if you're young).

I don't think this will be resolved anytime soon, but what the market cares about is that things do not get worse.

Apparently China only accounts for 12 percent of imports/exports:

In 2024, US exports to China and imports from China accounted for 7.0 percent and 13.8 percent of the US total exports and imports for the year respectively

http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2025-04/09/content_117814362_3.html#:~:text=China%20is%20the%20US's%20third,imports%20for%20the%20year%20respectively.

So with the 90 day pause on other countries, the actual inflation tally as reflected by CPI will be much less than originally feared and limited to only a handful of goods.

So it seems like it’s more of a targeted war against China specifically? Likely giving other nations time to choose (with us or against us), and slapping the nations who chose to align with China with huge tariffs in 90 days

I think this is giving too much credit. Plenty of people in Trumpworld, even people very close to him, have spent the past days insisting that the tariffs are not a negotiating tactic, they are a necessary measure, and even in some cases that the stock market collapse is a necessary correction. I think they just got spooked that the slide had no signs of stopping and went into reverse gear. It's hard to see that 90 days is sufficient to conclude trade deals with most of the countries in the world (TPP took over 8 years to conclude), it's just a panic button.

Plenty of people in Trumpworld, even people very close to him, have spent the past days insisting that the tariffs are not a negotiating tactic, they are a necessary measure, and even in some cases that the stock market collapse is a necessary correction

This is true. However, how effective would tariffs be as a negotiation tactic if they came out and said "don't worry, it's just a negotiation tactic" ?

I'm not one to ascribe genius and 4D chess for every move that DJT does, but this case in particular does have Art of the Deal written all over it:

  1. Start with an extreme position
  2. Pump out soundbites and headlines that suck up all of the attention. Create a sense of urgency to pressure the other side and keep everyone guessing about your true intentions
  3. Walk away if the the deal doesn't satisfy you

This is true. However, how effective would tariffs be as a negotiation tactic if they came out and said "don't worry, it's just a negotiation tactic" ?

So is Trump lying about the tariffs being potentially permanent? Because, if not, "do X or I will continue to withhold Y from you" seems like a perfectly valid and sensible negotiating tactic. It is straightforward and lets your counterparts know exactly what they have to do and you've already shown them that you're willing to seriously harm them if you don't get what you want.

It is the same strategy Trump himself used against Colombia.

If Trump isn't lying that he was willing to keep on tariffs this seems like a pretty good negotiation tactic since he achieves the same certainty that he is serious without the doubt that he's serious/acting in good faith.

If Trump is lying, then what are we to make of his sudden pause after refusing to offer such a thing? It seems the worst of all worlds. You appear insincere and erratic and like you're pulling a negotiation tactic with people being unable to settle on one explanation.

I'm not one to ascribe genius and 4D chess for every move that DJT does, but this case in particular does have Art of the Deal written all over it

Maybe. But one might wonder whether Art of the Deal is what you want here.

It's one thing to highlight leverage. But there is a question of whether you actually want to keep people guessing about what you want in a trade deal, especially when that trade deal will have to be sold to their domestic audience who a) have to accept it as legitimate and b) have to trust that Trump's demands are bounded and that making them eat shit on supply management or whatever won't actually just lead to Trump coming back in a little while because your willingness to fold emboldens him.

It's hard to see that 90 days is sufficient to conclude trade deals with most of the countries in the world (TPP took over 8 years to conclude), it's just a panic button.

That depends on whether or not you believe that long trade negotiations occur as a means of negotiating trade, or as a means of furnishing the sinecures of lazy trade negotiator bureaucrats.

We saw the same thing with Brexit and the length of negotiations were all BS there too. In no possible universe is [https://www.gbnews.com/politics/brexit-news-eu-laws-bananas-retained-eu-law “How bendy can a banana be”] a legitimate negotiating question.

That depends on whether or not you believe that long trade negotiations occur as a means of negotiating trade, or as a means of furnishing the sinecures of lazy trade negotiator bureaucrats.

One of the arguments made against reciprocal tariffs is that it was simply too difficult to calculate - given the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of items and so many countries, and the non-tariff barriers that the Trump admin themselves pointed out - by April.

I would be much more confident in the "lazy trade negotiator bureaucrats trying to get paid" explanation rather than "Trump panic button" if Trump had already outperformed the naysayers by putting out a reciprocal tariff scheme that didn't boil down to a simple formula.

“How bendy can a banana be” a legitimate negotiating question.

Well it sort of obviously is a negotiating question. If you want free access to European markets some degree of harmonisation has to occur - whether one party thinks regulation X is pointless isn't really material, the question is are they willing to endanger a trade deal to ditch the bendy bananas regulation. And so the inevitable horse trading.

whether one party thinks regulation X is pointless isn't really material, the question is are they willing to endanger a trade deal to ditch the bendy bananas regulation

Considering what said bendy bananas regulation actually says, it's a good example of something the EU should insist on having as it's all about labeling standards, ie. not trying to pass subpar produce as prime quality.

Why is a bendy banana subpar?

I think the bendy ones are supposed o be higher quality.

No, it's exactly as ridiculous as the memes say. I grew up under a lack of EU regulations on the matter, and for some mysterious reason there was no deluge of mislabeled poor quality food (in fact I'm prettty sure the general quality was better).

Produce seems like the perfect example of a place where regulation is not needed. Lidl’s general guarantee plus consumers’ discernment should be enough without Brussels needing to mandate a standard banana

I think the fact that Trump would not go through with the tariffs were already priced in, and the share prices going up is just the world updating the probability that Trump will cause a worldwide recession.

Also, I think Trump comes across as an asshole in all of that.

  • "You are all not listening enough to me, so I will stop talking with you, effective today."
  • "On further reflection, you have signaled a willingness to discuss this with me, and thus I will postpone my not talking to you by 90 days. Except for Winnie, who is super-duper terrible, so I will not only not talk to him, I will not even look into his direction now. Also, if I see anyone still talking to him, I will possibly become angry at them and stop talking to them."

Given that, the rest of the world might think long and hard if they prefer to trade with the unhinged clown who will threaten them one day only to say "just kidding. OR AM I?" the next, or with a somewhat sinister power who at least pursues their own objectives in a rational, long-term thinking way.

Yes, before, if China approached your country and said you must take your pick: the US or China, you would probably pick the US.

After all of this unhinged clown shit, if the US says you must choose between the US and China, it's a tough call!

I've largely ignore all the tariff talk the last, jeeze, two weeks? Three weeks? It's just repetitive top level posts really adding nothing over and over and over again, everyone so certain they know what's going to happen.

Nobody knows what's going to happen. Did anyone know this would happen? Does anyone know what happens next?

I'm just so tired with everyone's vapid obsession with tariffs. To the point where it feels like a psyop. I've repeated my criteria for the Trump administration, and my hesitancy to rush to judgement too quickly. I'm waiting until the mid terms to see if my life has gotten better, or worse. I don't care about twitter post, I don't care about stock market swings, I do care about inflation, but in the "Has my pay risen faster than my grocery bill" sense and not a "Here's how the federal reserve is lying with statistics" kind of way.

Can we all reflect, for a moment, about all the breath and ink that has been feverishly spilled over this topic the last two weeks, to come to what? Do we even know what this point is supposed to represent? Or what tomorrow's tweets will be?

We've had topic bans before, and honestly I wouldn't be opposed to a month long ban on tariff discussion. Or putting it into it's own thread. Might as well be arguing alternate histories as far as I'm concerned.

I'm just so tired with everyone's vapid obsession with tariffs. To the point where it feels like a psyop.

"It feels like a psyop"? Oh good heavens.

I feel like you're only upset about the topic because it reflects poorly on your ingroup, and it's providing fodder for your outgroup. Democrats were practically wallowing in despair for several months after the election, but Trump's buffoonishness was such a blatant shoot-myself-in-the-foot moment that suddenly the Dems were getting very talkative again, and almost became triumphant. They were practically egging on a crash, and reality was largely granting it to them until Trump waffled.

I doubt your reaction would be similar if the shoe was on the other foot, e.g. if Biden suddenly tried to force 1 in 20 people to undergo a sex change in the name of diversity.

I doubt your reaction would be similar if the shoe was on the other foot, e.g. if Biden suddenly tried to force 1 in 20 people to undergo a sex change in the name of diversity.

As rude and susceptible to partisan bias as it is to speculate on someone's partisan motivations, I find myself agreeing with your assessment of WhiningCoil in most of this comment, but this last part is pretty ridiculous. I'm not sure there's a level of behavior about tariffs that any POTUS could do that would come within an order of magnitude as extreme as actually forcing anyone to undergo sex changes, which would be legit authoritarian overreach in a way that the tariffs or even Trump's recent behavior with respect to deportations aren't. To say nothing of forcing millions of people to undergo sex changes. Like, even if Trump decided to enact Graham's Number% universal tariffs one second and then 0% the next second and varied wildly between them 3600/hour for every waking hour of his presidency, that wouldn't be anywhere in the same ballpark (though certainly it would provide a ton of legitimate fodder for conversation!). Yes, they're both examples of politically shooting oneself in the foot, but you're comparing doing so with an assault rifle and doing so with a nuke. And the precise examples of comparison isn't the point, but using such an obviously absurd hypothetical makes this comment appear in bad faith. Which is unfortunate, because, again, I think the main thrust of the comment is accurate.

I'm not sure what the equivalent of Trump's recent tariff behavior would be from the Democratic end. Something like a wealth tax on some ridiculously low amount of wealth that would apply to a majority of households, for the purpose of funding entitlements, maybe? That'd certainly be worth discussing plenty, and certainly there would be plenty of Democrat-aligned people trying to minimize the discussion as much ado about nothing as a way to distract away from something that made their side look bad, though I'd hope that no one on this forum would do so (and I'd honestly guess none of the regulars would do so).

OK sure, my particular example was dumb for the reasons you pointed out. I wanted to think of something that had partisan valence in the other direction, but at this point Republicans are mostly only pro-business as a historical accident. Most of the base hates "Wall Street" and "Big Business", so I think their response to Bernie-style economic leftism would be relatively muted compared to, say, 20 years ago.

That's a pretty good way to spin writing a dumb comparison and then admitting that you can't think of a better one. But not good enough to actually distract me sadly.

though I'd hope that no one on this forum would do so (and I'd honestly guess none of the regulars would do so).

While we have quite a few good eggs around here, a brief look at the past 8-9 years should be enough to dispelled most of this hope. We've had regulars argue against Damore, against Nick Sandman, in defense of BLM burning down that police precinct, that Kavanaugh was a rapist, and I don't recall more than a handful of progressive/liberal-leaning posters saying anything about it (and the ones that did probably wouldn't be recognized as progressive/liberals by other progressives/liberals).

I'm just so tired with everyone's vapid obsession with tariffs. To the point where it feels like a psyop.

When the market posts the biggest decline since Covid or 2008, of course people are going to care . It was the market crash that got people talking about it. And the fact the tariffs were so much more onerous compared to past tariffs.

Look, I understand finding a topic uninteresting but we're talking about a thing that could upturn the whole world economy. And the reason there is so much uncertainty about it is because the president of the united states is intentionally yoyoing us back and forth across the precipice. It's not a psyop that this is being discussed, some thing are actually genuinely important.

But it is very tiring to see people suddenly pop up acting like they're experts after months of low/no engagement, just because they suddenly have a stick they can hit people with.

I keep asking them tariff questions from last year and never get a response, because they never cared about tariffs until this week.

But it is very tiring to see people suddenly pop up acting like they're experts after months of low/no engagement, just because they suddenly have a stick they can hit people with.

Trump blowing his own foot off and staggering around bleeding while the stock market tanks and his supporters flood the internet with contradictory asspulled copes about what he might be trying to do isn't actually tiresome or boring, no matter how little some people want to talk about it. If you guys don't like it, minimize the subthreads like everyone else does for everything else they don't care about.

Tariffs weren't really a huge deal until last week. They were generally considered bad policy with a couple edge cases and much of America's presence in the world was preaching free trade, which in practice meant no to low tariffs. Trump's hallucinated list of tariffs imposed on us notwithstanding there was bipartisan consensus that they were bad policy outside of very specific targeting. When the bear wakes up from its long hibernation and begins mauling people it is unsurprising that bear related discussions go from very rare to quite frequent.

The thing is, to me it seems that high tariffs are obviously bad for me, in a way that many of Trump's other policies are not obviously bad for me. I'd prefer to keep buying cheaper products, as opposed to more expensive products. I have no desire to go work in manufacturing. And I care almost nothing at all about the US becoming self-sufficient in national security-related products because as far as I am concerned, the oceans and the nukes are all we need to keep the US safe from any major threat.

Given that tariffs offer me nothing that I value, and only seem to offer me bad things, of course I go criticize them online. It's not some general attempt to bash Trump on my part, it's a specific criticism of a specific Trump policy that I would really prefer he dropped.

  1. Before 2001, most people had never cared about airplane cockpit security.
  2. Before 2008, most people had never cared about mortgage-backed securities.
  3. Before 2020, most people had never cared about coronaviruses.
  4. Before 2025, most people had never cared about tariffs.

Why is 4 different from the others?

I still don't care about coronaviruses or airplane cockpit security; the threats were wildly overblown by a single high-profile incident. We didn't need to respond to covid at all(and indeed, the correct response- both with the information available at the time and with benefit of hindsight- was to just shoot the chicken littles trying to shut down society over it and declare it 'not a big deal') and 9/11 can be safely considered a one off event.

So the real question becomes 'why are tariffs more like mortgage backed securities than covid?'

The cockpit security doors are less obviously insane than most of the anti-Twin-Towers measures. There's a drawback in the whole "pilot suicide" issue, but pilot suicides are a lot less bad than ramming attacks and are in some ways easier to stop.

Yes, the Flight 93 scenario is the norm now which makes it far harder to pull off a lookalike, but some defence in depth isn't crazy.

The cockpit security doors are less obviously insane than most of the anti-Twin-Towers measures.

As far as I know they are the only such security measures to have resulted in the loss of an aircraft Germanwings 9525 with all aboard. Pilot suicides might be less bad than ramming attacks... but it's an open question about whether they are less common, or if the security doors enable more suicides-with-all-aboard than they do mitigate ramming attacks.

Pilot suicides might be less bad than ramming attacks... but it's an open question about whether they are less common, or if the security doors enable more suicides-with-all-aboard than they do mitigate ramming attacks.

They are much more common but the right comparison would be between pilot suicides and ramming attacks if the latter was still possible. But the safety doors don't really matter for pilot suicides, they happened just as much before and logically you don't need a long time to crash a plane. You couldn't do it the way the germanwings guy did it but the SilkAir way would still work.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot#By_pilots_in_control_of_whole_flight

More comments

There's a drawback in the whole "pilot suicide" issue, but pilot suicides are a lot less bad than ramming attacks and are in some ways easier to stop.

This doesn't even seem to be that big of a problem in the US. The largest differences from the Germanwings flight being:

  1. There are always two people on the flight deck now. Even when one pilot has to take a relief break a flight attendant steps onto the flight deck. Even if the FA has no idea what is going on, the added sense of shame from committing the act in front of another person is a strong deterrent. I also assume the FA would at least notice when the plane starts calling out "Terrain terrain. Pull-up Pull-up."
  2. Roughly (1,000 + 500) + 1,000 flight hours to fly a 737 or A320 size aircraft. Through a combination of rATP, ATP, and scope clause/regional captain restrictions. There would have been substantially more time to detect the Germanwings pilot unfitness with US airline levels of flight hour requirements. He only had 630 hours at the time. This would barely be enough to fly a clapped out Cessna 172 on pipeline patrol in the US.
  3. The FAA making it practically impossible to hold a first class medical after a severe depressive episode like the Germanwings pilot had. There's some argument for allowing pilots with minor problems to seek help, but not everyone is suited to every job. You've got to draw a line somewhere.

I actually don't follow in terms of how mortgage-backed securities are different than the other two examples here. If anything I think the tariffs are the odd one out here, since my modal expectation is that Trump walks them back and there is approximately zero long-term impact (at least relative to the other three examples). If you had said "4 is different because it's a nothingburger" I would admit you might have a point -- but to say that tariffs are nothingburgers like 9/11 and covid, not real like the GFC... I notice that I am confused.

My original point was just that there is frequently some Event which impacts everyone, and where everyone gains strong opinions about Adjacent Topic where they didn't really have an opinion on Adjacent Topic before Event, and so pointing out that people had no opinion about Adjacent Topic before Event isn't particularly informative.

Mortgage backed securities are different in that they actually had an effect different from people reading too much into them following a high-profile news story. You couldn’t have just ignored sub-prime mortgages in ‘08 the way you could have the virus in 2020.

I've repeated my criteria for the Trump administration, and my hesitancy to rush to judgement too quickly. I'm waiting until the mid terms to see if my life has gotten better, or worse.

Then I'd recommend utilizing the little bar next to any post about Trump for the next eighteen months to minimize discussions on it.

This is such a weird reversal in the demand for hugboxing, that I'm seeing on Twitter and IRL as well. Where I felt like last year the story was "SO WHAT IF BIDEN DOESN'T KNOW WHO THE PRESIDENT IS, WHAT ABOUT FASCISM!?!?" Now I'm seeing so many right wingers telling people to stop talking about the tariffs because idk there's a trans fencer or something.

Has there been a topic moratorium in years? As I understood them, the topic moratoriums were put in place to soothe a plurality of people uninterested in (or uncomfortable with) the 10th weekly HBD/trans thread. A vestige from a more complex environment where mods had to account for significant differences to keep the peace. Most of those interests are gone along with the contributors that enjoyed those efforts. Unlike the dark arts behind HBD poasts this is an active and developing news item that has immediate and potentially long-lasting impacts on the world.

Taking the grill pill is fine. Welcome. Embrace the grill pill and accept what will be. To fully transcend you must let go the desire to rain on other parades.

There has not been a topic moratorium ever on themotte. There was one in the culture war thread in the slatestarcodex subreddit.

We have implemented rules about single issue posting for specific users that can get annoyingly stuck in a single issue.

We have sometimes had containment threads, but there isn't tons of enforcement of that containment. I don't think anyone has ever had so much as a warning for violating those.

Congratulations, you just made the worst argument in the world for the millionth time. "You don't care? That makes you a bad person."

I don't care because I already lived through worse in 08, assorted points during Obama where we nearly "broke the buck", COVID, and most recently at points in 2022 where all the gains of my portfolio were wiped out going back to 2017. These tariff hiccups don't even take my portfolio back to the beginning of 2024.

Also, it's not a loss until you sell. Which if you do, you're a chump. Panic selling the bottom is how they get you.

I don't care about daily stock market swings because they are fucking retarded, and you shouldn't either.

  • -16

I'm not sure that @newintown is saying that if you don't care, you're a bad person. At least, that's not how I read it. To me it seems that he is pointing out why he cares.

at points in 2022 where all the gains of my portfolio were wiped out going back to 2017

What the fuck you invested in? Year end 2017 S&P 500 was below 2,700, the low point in 2022 was over 3,500.

These tariff hiccups don't even take my portfolio back to the beginning of 2024.

Until Trump climbed down today the slide was showing no signs of stopping whatsoever. We're barely more than a week removed from the original announcement.

Until Trump climbed down today the slide was showing no signs of stopping whatsoever. We're barely more than a week removed from the original announcement.

I will say, having my net worth in term deposits (because I'm a pessimist, if largely for other reasons) has served me well this week.

Sure, I wouldn't care either if I didn't have hundreds of thousands invested in the market, like millions of other people do through various retirement accounts.

Maybe I read too much into it. That just pattern matched to "millions are suffering and I care like a good person should". And I refute both points. Retirement accounts are not lost in a day unless you sell the bottom like a hysterical woman, and we've seen worse event in recent memory, much less living memory.

I also didn't see your post as insinuating he was a "bad person". I don't know how he came to that conclusion or what he means by that.

Shit man, if you are 59 years old you really ought to have figured out what a bad person is by now. Or at least have some inkling. I am similarly confused if you meant you don't understand what he meant by 'insinuate you are a bad person'.

This is a news discussion forum and this has been the biggest news for a while, clearly it’s going to be the central topic.

It’s fun to see opinions in real time.

Be boring if we all held our breaths until everything is over.

I mean, I get that, but I don't.

Like, I get that if we're talking about a court case. Diving into the minutia of which legal arguments the Supreme Court will agree with, and which justices will go which way. Less so when it comes to individual court cases, like Rittenhouse, although I understand they are good drama and lightning rods for the culture war. I certain dove all in on some of them.

I get it when it comes to hot conflicts like Ukraine and Russia, and debating tactics, strategy and capabilities. Especially because reality quickly asserts itself.

The tariff discussion though... all I know is that all the same talking heads who've been wrong about everything insist tariff's will destroy the economy. They quote that the last time we did this was 100 years ago, and that simultaneously that's how we know it's a terrible idea, but also that the world has changed so much tariffs won't work like they used to when Trump brags about how great they were 100 years ago.

Fact of the matter is, Trump is a singular figure in history. He doesn't compare to anyone else. As well, these tariffs, coming from him, with the state of the world being what it is, is a singular moment in history that cannot be compared to any other. 10 years from now, some people might rise to the top as "having been right about the Trump tariffs". Some of them might have even done so on purpose! But I would also not be shocked if they lead to outcomes nobody predicts and nobody gets it completely, or even half right. You might as well be arguing about the next number at the craps table.

I haven't been taking my opinions on the tariffs from talking heads. It just seems evident to me from first principles that the tariffs are more likely to hurt me than help me. I can't think of any way in which they could possibly help me. I don't want to work in manufacturing and I don't care about increasing US national security from its current level of "almost completely impregnable" to "so ridiculously impregnable that it's hard to imagine it being much more impregnable, barring the invention of effective anti-nuke defenses".

Ok, but until he climbed down the expert consensus was exactly right on what the reaction of the markets would be.

I struggle with economic discussion in general because

A. I know almost nothing about economics and what I do know makes the entire system seem like a massive fraud i.e. it's a ponzi scheme when I do it but they're treasury bonds when the feds do it

B. The kinds of people who are able to discourse about economics are overwhelmingly PMC and will represent PMC interests and when economics are discussed at all then what is considered to be "good policy" will be policy that doesn't take into consideration blue collar workers

There's no way that Trump and his inner circle aren't insider trading on these tariff announcements, right?

Who cares? "Insider trading" probably doesn't crack the top 5 list of worst examples of corruption, and Trump defenders would furiously denounce it as "lawfare" no matter what it was anyways.

What’re they going to do, send the SEC after them?

Of course. Just give out 100 blanket pardons at the end of your term.

A lot of these earlier crypto announcements were clearly insider traded, cause you can see these crazy flows actually on the blockchain. Tradfi very opaque

He tweeted earlier today, telling people to buy. I didn't realize you were supposed to take shit like that seriously.

I assumed he was saying that in a "buy the dip" and "please stop selling" sense, not that he was actually going to start taking steps to raise the stock market again...

Whatever happened to the fig leaf of "This is not financial advice, but here's what I'm doing..."

I think that’s likely too and doubt he tweeted with the intention of doing this. He spent days saying similar things.

I don't know if it makes it better. "At the time I had no idea I'd cancel the reciprocal tariffs a couple hours later!" But of course, it's also all according to plan.

Trump seems to have a legitimate hard-on for tariffs going back decades (as some people point out even most of his 2016 announcement speech was about tariffs and thinking free trade is bad) but he also seems to be a scaredy cat who keeps backing down anytime it causes actual trouble. He's delayed stuff like what, 4-5 times already?

At some point the market is just going to stop reacting because they'll internalize the large majority of tariff threats end up fizzling out. High chance he backs down on China some too, or at least that they allow some obvious workaround like China > Vietnam > US or something.

Edit: And it's already starting https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-hell-take-look-exempting-some-larger-us-companies-hit-especially-hard-tariffs

Man, I don't even know. Because "the stock market crashed and a bunch of retirees are mad because that's their nest egg" is, I think, a significant part of the signal Trump is looking at. But the market is considering the impact of tariffs times the probability that Trump actually sticks with them, so if the market stops believing Trump, the market impact of the tariffs stops looking so large, which makes Trump less likely to change his mind, which increases the chance they stick around... feels like one of those cursed anti-inductiveness/self-defeating-prophecy dynamics.

I am worried about this too, but the strength of the favourable initial market reaction to his climbdown makes me hope he might not try again in 90 days again.

feels like one of those cursed anti-inductiveness/self-defeating-prophecy dynamics.

I believe the technical term is 'negative-feedback loop'.

The term "negative feedback loop" is a technical term for this but a non-specific one. Other related terms are "non-credible threat", "equilibrium selection", and "brinksmanship". I like the term "one of those cursed anti-inductive things", though, because

  1. The situation is cursed
  2. The anti-inductiveness is the main think causing the situation to be cursed
  3. I don't have the math chops to know what the equilibrium actually looks like here, so using proper terms from the game theory literature would be an implicit claim to expertise that I don't have.

Here's how I'm modeling the situation:

  • Trump has two buttons. The first button is labeled "WIN", and announces to the world that an economic disaster will happen. The second button is labeled "LOSE", and announces to the world that the scheduled economic disaster has been cancelled.
  • Trump views himself if a winner if his people love him AND his most-recently-pressed button was the "WIN" button. He cares more about being loved than about winning.
  • Trump wants to be a winner.
  • Trump can press both buttons any number of times.
  • Trump's people are old and their nest eggs have significant market exposure. If the market drops >10%, his people will stop loving him until the market recovers to at least that point.

As far as I can tell, this situation leads to the cycle

  1. Trump presses "WIN".
  2. Nothing happens until market participants judge that there's at least a 25% chance that Trump won't press "LOSE"
  3. Once market participants judge a 25% chance that Trump presses "LOSE", the market drops by 10%
  4. Trump's people stop loving him
  5. Trump presses "LOSE".
  6. The market recovers. Anyone who bet that Trump would press "LOSE" makes money.
  7. Go to 1.

I don't have the math chops to figure out what actually happens in this model as market participants get better at predicting Trump's behavior though. My suspicion is "25% chance the disaster actually happens each time we go through the cycle".

Trump thinks he is a genius but he does also think other people (Musk, some of his golfing pals, some other real estate people, some Wall St people) are also geniuses and I guess some combination of them on the phone spooked him.

It’s just his usual negotiating tactic

Make some crazy demand then pause it to use the demand as an anchor from which to negotiate. Door in the face technique it’s called iirc

Door in the face technique

Ok, that's pretty damn funny. I'll have to steal that!

It’s not really stealing, that’s actually what it’s called in psychology.

I see! I'd heard of foot-in-the-door, and thought Magusoflight was riffing off that. I guess psychologists have a sense of humour too.

but he also seems to be a scaredy cat

125% tariffs on all Chinese imports is "scaredy cat" behavior?

If he caves on China then sure, make fun of him all you want.

125% tariffs on all Chinese imports is "scaredy cat" behavior?

If he caves on China then sure, make fun of him all you want.

It doesn't seem like the market believes he will actually follow through given the rally back, and given he's caved multiple times already on other nations (including this recent one) it's a fair expectation when seeing a consistent pattern.

Or that China is not the only important country from a trade perspective.

While I would agree that the market does not find the China tariffs very plausible as a long-term policy, we're still well below inauguration asset price levels, so I would interpret the market as mostly saying that a) the 10% tariffs are a major impediment to growth and so are the China tariffs and b) he screwed the business climate up so badly already that there is no fixing it.

Or the market was irrational back then with crazy P/E ratios.

Well we can do a !RemindMe and if he does cave on China (i.e. returning to basically the pre-tariff status quo, modulo perhaps some minor and ultimately inconsequential concessions on either side) then yes, I will acknowledge that the whole thing was dumb and a waste of time.

Decoupling from China is a legitimate and important strategic goal for the US, and I think there are enough China hawks in both the administration proper and the Republican party in general that there is enough political will to see it through.

It's not some 100% guarantee thing. It's possible he goes through with it, but we also have his whole first term to look at where he also did the same exact thing of threatening tariffs on China only to pull back like what happened with Apple https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/apple-dodges-iphone-tariff-after-trump-confirms-china-trade-agreement.html

He had said over and over again there would be no exemptions only for the exemptions to come. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/26/trump-apple-tariff-waivers-1437284 https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/20/trump-apple-mac-pro-tariff-exemption/

Even if he doesn't drop the tariffs themselves on a technical level, history does suggest there will be meaningful levels of exemptions and workarounds. Most of his actions so far have been to bark really loud and then pull back.

Again, if he does pull back, or if he leaves a loophole so big that the tariffs are effectively symbolic, then I will acknowledge that the whole thing was dumb and a waste of time.

Well good news, not even that much later and it's already starting with talk of exempting large companies https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-hell-take-look-exempting-some-larger-us-companies-hit-especially-hard-tariffs

What event are we reminding for exactly, though? If the China tariffs remain large and the stock market fully recovers despite this? My claim is pretty much just that financial markets think the tariffs are bad for the economy and that they are not pricing in the consequences of them staying long-term.

Watch for staff turnover.

If this really was "the plan all along," I would expect most people to stay put.

If there was some moment where Trump "realized" that this was a massive economic blunder, he'll move or fire people, while still claiming "yep ... plan all along"

Isn't there still a baseline of 10% during these 90 days?

A 10% blanket tax on imports is a mild price increase on Amazon and an inefficient federal sales tax. Not big news.

Anticipating the outline of the 5D chess explanation: this was the plan all along, training allies to meekly accept US dictates, baiting the disrespectful Chinese into cringe, standoffish behaviour. Now allies, cowed, thankful, will only negotiate 1:1, happy to put tariffs on China to avoid the terrible, terrible flood of goods. Such determination was shown that nobody will dare reduce own vulnerability to another round of similar 'negotiations'.

The intellectual leader of MAGA has basically already confirmed your line of thinking.

They’d have to convincingly explain why he wouldn’t just say “we’re aligning the world away from China, let’s get tariffs between members of the Free World to 0% so we don’t subsidize the Chinese manufacturing industry that can be used against us” or any version of that, adding or subtracting important information.

With a level of charity that I would myself question the reason behind: "reasonable requests" get indefinitely referred to committees and yield "we'll see" (which means probably no in practice) responses. Witness that American presidents have been encouraging increased EU defense spending for decades, but it took the (IMO very questionable) announcements of the last few months to seemingly cause a change in mindset and priorities. It takes a (perceived) crisis to make people reconsider seemingly "forever" policies: "but we need our dairy tariff to protect our delicate cows and farmers and their ancestral cheese making practices" sounds so nice and reasonable, making it hard to ever get rid of. Neoliberalism is really bad at enacting policies that sound mean.

Even with all that said, I still am not convinced it's worth it. Or even that close to being worth it.

With a level of charity that I would myself question the reason behind: "reasonable requests" get indefinitely referred to committees and yield "we'll see" (which means probably no in practice) responses.

The alternative is not the President politely requesting X in a diplomatic communique and then sitting around, especially if the thing is clearly something people are not inclined to do. It's some mixture of messaging combined with arm-twisting and maybe even tariffs, just without the weird deficit/tariff calculations, the erratic behavior or the opacity or inconsistency in the messaging.

It's not as if this is even unknown in the Trump administration: it is quite clear what his beef was with the Colombian president and why it would end and what he would do if it didn't.

WhiningCoil feels like they're being psyopped by the debate, I feel similar. The debate forces you into arguing about whether the American president is incapable of coercing nations or manufacturing crises for them without this level of uncertainty or incompetence.

People literally cannot say what Trump's goal is for sure, but we're all forced to play this game.

Luckily MAGA influencers put out so many mutually conflicting explainers for what Trump's strategy actually is that they can always pick one narrative and say that this was the plan all along.

Looking at this, I wonder if it’s not some kind of reverse rug pulling, where insiders buy on the dip, knowing reversal is coming.

More seriously, I wonder how aware Trump is that this constant flip flopping is destroying his ability to make credible threats in future.

"Trump is acting in a way which maximizes his ability to rip off the stock market through insider trading" is as good an explanation as any.

Him becoming not credible is only a problem for the US, not for him personally. If the stock market stops reacting to his announcements he can always order the US military to occupy Greenland to get their attention back.

All told, this was an excellent exercise in letting the markets price my risks. Since the initial announcement, I haven't bought or sold stocks-- because I'm saving up for some personal risks, but also because there's no sense panicking when the market isn't. SPY is down about ~15% from the peak rn, which sucks, but it's "economic contraction" territory rather than "economic disaster" territory.

Idk when the S&P dumps 20% in a week it’s a pretty good buy signal. Especially if you’re on a longer term time horizon

I didn't panic sell, but I'm on a month-and-a-half time horizon, and that's why I didn't buy.

I wonder if it was another real estate guy who said something like ‘this is going to be very bad for Manhattan real estate’. Can’t think of anything else.

Musk got through?

Musk really needed / needs a reprieve on the China tariffs, Tesla will continue doing poorly in Europe regardless because of his perceived politics.

Even going from the complete insanity of, like, a hour ago to something that is merely extremely risky would be beneficial from Musk's point of view.

Watch to see if Navarro survives I guess.

Wow, the fake news was real. I honestly can’t tell if this was straight luck or a legitimate leak.

I'm guessing leak; it fits in with Trump's usual MO on these things.