June 08, 2025
TEST
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:41 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 38 words, total size 734 kb.
It's finally RIOT SEASON!
I copy-pasted a screencap from another blog. Given the current image issues IDK if it will be visible, but it talks about the violence erupting in L.A. at the moment because Illegal immigrants are getting deported. The tweet(? what are they called now anyway?) also links to analysis by DataRepublican(small r) indicating that the organization organizing this is largely government funded.
Except for a few specific examples, mostly the U.S. Aid programs that have been taken up by the State Department the vast amounts of Taxpayer money that D.O.G.E discovered has been given to activist groups has not been stopped due to congressional inaction. However that is a real possibility. Secretary Rubio has indicated that about 12% of money allotted to U.S. Aid causes went to the actual causes, meaning that 88% went to....um....
Oh! That's a lot of information behind that "um". Let us have a moment of silence for the sacrifices made by deaf autistic girls in wading through all that data to find the truth.
There.
Now, the up-shot of all this that there are a whole lot of people who have been basically living on sinecures at taxpayer expense and a large number of very big activist organizations that have been funded with money looted from programs that are ostensibly government funded charities. The taxpayer money spigot is now, for the first time since this scam began, actually in very real danger of being turned off. The beneficiaries of this system, faced with loosing their sinecures and rent-a-mobs have always been unlikely to give it up without a fight. (and fight they will)
Heretofore this year, the weather has not been conducive to burning, looting, or murdering, but as we enter summer these beneficiaries of our taxes, who are essentially aristocrats, are likely to get VERY violent (or at least stir others up to violence) in order to protect their payouts and the power they purchase for them.
We are in for a 'long, hot summer'.
Stay safe.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:35 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 336 words, total size 191 kb.
June 07, 2025
Oh No
THIS looks bad.
Very bad indeed.
But there is some infinitesimal potential for it to be GLORIOUSLY BAD.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:29 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.
I Still Cannot Post Images
But Don has a block of aggregated headlines providing your morning conspiratorial affirmation that the thought leaders and algorithms of the "Omnipotent, Ubiquitous THEY" do not want you to thrive. Everybody have a great weekend!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:12 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.
June 06, 2025
81 Years Ago Today
Do watch the whole thing. It is a product of it's time (Near the climax of the Cold War). It is also one of the most eloquent missives on the acts and consequences of that desperate day.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:06 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.
83 Years Ago This Week
Cdr. Salamander has some figures.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:53 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.
Version 2.0 DROPS!
This is IT!
Join us TONIGHT at 8:30pm EDT/ 12:30am UTC for a very special Friday Stream of Zenless Zone Zero!
We'll be exploring version 2.0 which drops today and reviewing the lore as well as partaking in the story, the pulls and, if things get too talky, we'll just randomly do combat from time to time. This is a HUGE update and an excellent chance to catch up on ZZZ, so grab a drink and a snack before you join us in chat, because we're going to be going much much later than usual.
Zenless Zone Zero is a VERY odd game. A genre-stir-fry set in a post apocalyptic...uh...90s retro-future ( Your character in this gritty future runs...a video store). It is a Gacha game, but is sufficiently FTP friendly that I have not spent a cent on it as of yet in the year I've been playing it.
This ZZZ ad actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the new plot elements and does not quite convey the story, overall tone, or game-play, And yet....it's not wrong.
I recently pulled Burnice, I promise I'll have her in my team tonight.
Stop by tonight, point and laugh at a streamer, and say "Hi!" at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:05 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 209 words, total size 2 kb.
Stuff
more...
Banality is below the fold. Here is a pleasant piece of art as compensation....
Image of Cute Anime Waifu Goes Here
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:37 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.
We Are Now In the Stage of Republican Governance
...where team "R" is on the cusp of, if not victory, at least major progress. This is the point where Republicans traditionally stop, reflect upon the hard fought political battles that got them this far, the hopes and dreams of their long tormented constituents, who might finally get a measure of what they've been promised since 1982, the awful consequences for the nation if they fail, and having so contemplated their journey, the stakes and their cause, adjust their ties, take deep breath, step forward with grim determination, step into a kiddie pool full of gasoline light it on fire and begin beating each other mercilessly with buffalo chips.
HOW THE F#%k CAN THIS HAVE POSSIBLY....HAPPENED.....um.....AGAIN?
There is some hope to be sure, it can be found over at Issues and Insights, deep within the narrowing corridors of the editorial boards sanity. There is even more solace to be found in the foetid cesspits of a similar mental instability I like to refer to as Tuckertardation.
But, those of us who have been through this before know that it's neither super-genius, nor the dark machinations of an Illuminati controlled M.I.C. Rather it's men with agency who believe in something strongly and have different opinions. Tyrannical movements tend to purge those with strong opinions and convictions. They rely upon the agreeable, the compliant, the front-of-the-class-kids who can be relied upon to follow every regulation and helpfully tell the authorities where the non-compliant people are. Despots rely on those who "just don't want any trouble" to guard the camps in which they collect those who dare say "No!"
This also means that tyranny has a major advantage, because they have much better discipline in their ranks. Theirs is not particularly good at innovation, but for pursuing the goals of the clusterB personalities that inevitably float to the top of the commodes that are most top-down, technocratic political movements, they are frequently superior. Despotism is, as Fisher Ames is said to have said..
...like a sleek craft, it sails along well until some bumbling captain runs it into the rocks. Democracy, on the other hand, is like a raft. It never goes down but, dammit, your feet are always wet.
In my experience (note: I am a focus group of 1) this has been the way things play out. The cLiberal, Libertarian, & Conservative, types have strong convictions and are individualists. The progressives have whatever the most recent encyclical from Blue Sky tells them their convictions are, and they are collectivists that crave being part of the group. Things will almost ALWAYS go smoother on the other side, regarding internal discussions...until it doesn't...and when it doesn't it's because their fashion oriented, herd-like mentality predicated against speaking up while the aforementioned Blue-Sky encyclicals compounded in an orgy of virtue signaling and fashionable one-upmanship into an avalanche of sub-optimalization and someone finally has the temerity to notice that they are going off a cliff.
So no. I'm not holding out some forlorn hope that this is not an epic mess. I've seen this happen too many times. My preferred candidate has never won a primary. This is par for the course and part of being the side that's more free.
This well and truly suck, but if it does not result in utter defeat it can lead to better, more refined policies and better ultimate outcomes.
That up there is a pretty big "if".
There is no denying that this is a dumpster fire that has escalated because of the immense egos of two men whose discourse is rather less erudite, philosophical, and profound than we would like.
For THAT discussion, go to Nick Frietas...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:22 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 619 words, total size 5 kb.
June 03, 2025
Because: "WHY THE HELL NOT !?"
I wonder about the decision tree that led to this outcome.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:21 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 25 words, total size 1 kb.
May 26, 2025
Between Beer & Barbecue, do Ponder
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae, 1915
******************************
I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes," when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
Rudyard Kipling, 1890
******************************
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Variously attributed to Winston Churchill or George Orwell
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
11:56 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 596 words, total size 5 kb.
May 21, 2025
Riot Season
Laughing Wolf has a good overview of the situation we find ourselves in on multiple fronts.
Read the whole thing. It IS long but it is the best overview I've seen.
I think he's right that we are going into riot season. The NGOs and Democrat activists are looking at their money spigot being turned off by D.O.G.E. and they are rather annoyed at having their sinecures disrupted. They are coming to realize thar they are sitting on the last pile of money they will get from the taxpayers...unless they can intimidate enough people to halt the reforms that threaten their rice bowls.
They are likely to get quite violent this summer.
Foreign adversaries are likely to act as spoilers in the coming unpleasantness, and bad actors have placed a great many operatives throughout the country over the 4 years of the previous administration.
We are likely in for a ride.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:53 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 153 words, total size 1 kb.
Updates and Wound Care
Last week I learned that while applying antibiotics/antiseptics when initially dressing a wound is important, continuing to do so every time one changes the bandage will prevent healing as it kills people cells as well as infections. This, Ironically enough will inhibit the wound from closing up, making it much more likely that an infection will find its way into the wound during the extended healing time, no matter how well it's wrapped, especially if doing yard work.
I am ambulatory now and come off the antibiotics Friday. I returned to work today and discovered that lying in bed for a week with one's foot elevated does NOTHING to prepare one for returning to a very physical job.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:41 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 122 words, total size 1 kb.
May 06, 2025
Weather Patterns
Apropos of nothing at all.
This .gif shows sunlight reductions that are expected in the months after 100-150 10-15 kiloton nukes go off in a general nuclear exchange between India & Pakistan in May given seasonal wind patterns. Late April to mid-late May is the time that such an event would have maximum effect on the start of growing seasons worldwide, hence the dates on the .gif (which is over a decade old IIRC). While not noticeable to most people on the round such reductions have the potential to have a nontrivial effect on crop yields and growing seasons for the rest of the year. The good news is that soot, the mechanism of the reduction, will not persist long. The bad news, given the current situation on the subcontinent, is that average yields of the weapons involved are now believed to be 10 to 40 kilotons and both countries have about twice as many nukes as they did when the map was made.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:20 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 166 words, total size 1 kb.
April 13, 2025
More on Tariffs and Such
UPDATE: I'm ideologically and philosophically skeptical of tariffs as a concept. However, free trade is a two way street, and there are countries that have tariffs on out goods of over 200%. So I'm at least open to the concept.
However, a trade war, particularly given how shaky the global economy is right now, it a quite scary prospect, so there are good arguments for not picking at this scab right now.
On the other hand it is vanishingly unlikely that there will ever be a time to reset global trade to something sane that will not involve risk. This is akin to the conundrum cities face with getting rid of rent control. Trump is term limited and no other president is likely to pursue this with any degree of enthusiasm, so a whole host of counterarguments can be made that it's now or never.
On the gripping hand the people crying most loudly about this are not folks who have been free traders historically, but are people who seem VERY upset at having their rice bowls tipped over. Oppositional Defiant Disorder is not a valid political strategy, but when our tormentors are THIS upset by something, that something should at least be looked at closely. While it is more likely that they are enraged at the loss of their cushy sinecures and their many investments at our expense, it is actually possible that their very different perspective on reality might have given them an insight into something that is a blind spot for us. Both possibilities need to be looked at, but time is running out.
The future is an unlit road, we are driving down it with no headlights and the gas pedal on the floor. Let us pray that the ultimate destination is pleasant, for the drive is likely to be bumpy.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:16 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 310 words, total size 2 kb.
April 07, 2025
A.I is going to take our....Wait. What!?
Over at .Clue, J.Greely has a selection of episode reviews of anime from current week, all of which are worth reading. He also notes, as an aside, that he has been experimenting with a LLM FOR SCIENCE! and....um...
I remember when Projekt Melody's origin story was considered silly and contrived. Now I'm beginning to suspect it's actually a warning for us all.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:39 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.
April 06, 2025
Tariffying
OK. I'm BACK!
more...
This is the post where I (like everyone else on the internet at the moment) am required to be an expert on international trade, monetary policy, profit margins, comparative tax and tariff structures between economies as well as between cultures that have significant but sometimes non-intuitive differences, U.S. national industrial policy, to what extent the former should or should not reflect a policy of autarky, Canadian public opinion and how it's goals differ from the actual, as opposed to the stated goals of the Laurentian consensus, U.S. agricultural exports, the effects on both global hunger as well as the viability of American farmers that are likely to result from its curtailment, the realistic potential for industrial scale recourse extraction in CONUS, the environmental cost-benefit of the same, the United States' textile industry, the relative differences and severity between inflation that is due to product scarcity and that that is caused by overprinting of fiat currency, the carbon footprints produced by burning various models of Tesla vehicles, how fast new businesses and infrastructure might be built in the U.S., the political will of several other countries, the domestic political costs those other country's governments will incur regarding any trade concessions they might or might not make, the effect of economic tensions between potential allies in a time of global instability, and the effects of U.S. excise taxes upon penguins.
Sadly, unlike every other person on the internet right now, I have shameful gaps in my knowledge of many of those topics.
My qualifications are that I possess a degree in history, am a nerd, have a website and internet access so I can do a bit of research via mostly secondary and tertiary sources. Research Gate provides numerous peer reviewed papers on economic policy regarding aspects of the current topic which I am not particularly qualified to assess, and none on the current topic itself as it is a developing story.
So:
I'm gonna wing it.
I'm not gonna lie.
At the moment, my pucker factor is high.
I'm a conservative. I've been one all my life, never having gone through a liberal phase as such. (That's what growing up in the '70s will do to you. ) As such I have always been generally opposed to tariffs. Part of this was just tribal, as the left always extolled the virtues of tariffs. However, there is both a practical and a historic basis for my tariff skepticism, quite apart from the ideological theorizing of the Chicago School of Economics.
The practical opposition is mostly anecdotal and comes from my experiences as a child growing up in the 1970's and as a teenager in the 80s. U.S cars were absolute crap. Unreliable, and prone to astonishing rates of rust. My folks, who lived in the rural, costal southeast purchased numerous vehicles which rusted out with impressive alacrity*. All that changed when they got a Toyota Corolla. It ran reliably right up until my dad was attacked by a vicious tree which completely totaled the car, and yet it saved my dad's life. The next car served the family for 15 years, eventually becoming my first car until, at age 19, I was attacked by a vicious tree, while minding my own business at 70mph in a rainstorm. (My family has a fraught history with foliage). Anyway, I was uninjured. My Father also got a superb light truck, an Isuzu Pup diesel, which despite having been submerged twice in seawater (hurricane storm surges, literally attacks by vicious water) immense wear and tear, 2 collisions and a need to make spare parts from scratch is still serving my dad 40 years later, albeit intermittently and with some of it's metal structure replaced by lumber. The reason for this is not only because of the remarkable durability of 'Woody' but because tariff restrictions put in place since the 1980's due to the Japanese making light trucks of vastly superior quality to their American counterparts. The result of those restrictions which included a 25% tax on imported trucks, raised all the prices by 25% and made it exceedingly hard and expensive to get a good light truck.
These restrictions left a particularly bad taste in my mouth because the furor over Japanese Imports and demands for tariffs were hand in hand with grotesque racism aimed at the Japanese (our allies at the time in the existential struggle that was the cold war.) I grew up in the south in the 70's and '80s and was quite aware of how bad racism could be, and the disgusting hate directed at Asians during the 80's and into the '90s was quite the eye opener. I witnessed it first hand during my early years at university, when a very liberal host family who gave room and board to exchange students ( and included a U.A.W. member) reacted with horror and verbal abuse to receiving a Japanese exchange student. They kicked him out on the street and I was tasked with getting him assistance...that was a story in itself, but it cemented in my mind that the tariffs touted as "PWOTKTIN' DA GOOD PAYIN' UUNOION JOBZSEZ" were little more than payoffs to resentful lazy shithead racists annoyed they had to compete with folks possessing work ethics.
These observations are entirely anecdotal as well as being based on a control group of one racist shithead, so they lack academic rigor and any fairness to the rank and file of US autoworkers, but the sentiments that I witnessed were the same ones that led to the murder of Vincent Chin.
A more relevant and rigorous reason for concern at Trump's tariffs than the gut feeling of an aging redneck is the historical precedent of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which was passed in the closing years of the Hoover administration and helped the shaky economy and stock market crash of 1929 to balloon into a devastating worldwide economic crisis. This is well documented and a cause for considerable concern.
However:
Up until this year Democrats and those on the left were at least giving lip service to the need for tariffs. They suddenly changed their tune because Trump, very much a '90s Democrat, is pushing a '90s Democrat policy, thus that policy must be cast aside.
There's also that moral issue I noted earlier about lazy people resenting people with a work ethic. The Japanese are hard for Americans to grok because of their very different culture, but the tariff issues in the 1980's could be understood as American unions and rather complascent corporations panicking because hard working workers and companies overseas had beat them at their own game fair and square. Those tariffs were AND ARE STILL punishing American consumers not in the specific industries being afforded protection.
However, what happened in the 90s was not due to worker laziness or corporate ineptitude. It was a policy by Democrats to bypass earlier restrictions intended to protect the nations defense industrial base. This seems to be in return for dumptrucks full of cash from corporate boards who were very happy to reap the benefits of "free trade" if they did not have to pay U.S. wages. It should be remembered here that the Chinese workers, to give one example, are not simply working harder and better. They are often slaves, and when not are paid exceedingly little, being residents of an increasingly totalitarian state. Besides the moral atrocity that using such labor represents, local (American) workers cannot possibly compete with such practices.
Another factor is that other countries already have pretty impressive tariffs on U.S. goods. The much ballyhooed 241% Canadian Tariff on U.S. dairy is, while inconsistent & complex, a very real thing. This and similar tariffs in Europe are a hold over from the Cold War and the Marshall Plan, when the U.S. helped rebuild the world after WW2 and bribed them with favorable trade deals in exchange for not going wobbly while we faced down a murderous empire that said it dedicated itself to world peace, but defined peace as an absence of people on the planet not under it's own ideology....and had 30,000+ nuclear warheads pointed at us.
That's not the case anymore.
And yet the foreign tariffs on U.S. exports persist.
The U.S. industrial plant has been hollowed out. This is in part due to trends that began with the healthy competition that resulted from the Europeans recovering from their self-immolation in the 40s as well as the liberation of their colonies around the world, but it is also due to policies and tolerance of policies that have meant that the U.S. has been competing on a completely unfair playing field.
National security demands that we have the ability to make our kit here and economic prosperity requires jobs that are in our country.
But the increasingly perilous international situation requires allies, and those allies, who have always looked at us with a resentful sneer now see their rice bowls (that have become THE NORM FOR THEM) being overturned. If other countries politicos agree to low reciprocal tariffs as Trump is demanding, then the political pushback to the politicians from the constituencies their unfair and abusive tariffs protect is likely to be not just hurtful at election time, but terrifyingly kinetic.
Trump is, as Churchill once said of J.F. Dulles, a bull who helpfully provides his own China shop. His actions on these tariffs is upending the world order and has the potential to plunge the planet into an economic disaster.
His constituencies are cheering, as the post WW2 order has, especially since the neo-lib ascendency after the Cold War it was intended for, devastated their lives. This is partly due to an impressive avariciousness of our ruling class but also, a fairly new but undeniable oikophobic contempt for those not of the gentry classes by many of our policy makers, captains of industry and thought leaders. Thus Trump's supporters do not put much stock in their warnings, which, however well founded they may be, are ultimately self serving pleas by their tormentors.
On the other hand IF (a big if) other countries play ball, then Trump's actions might massively revitalize the U.S. economy, provide jobs, enhance national defense, and, potentially, bring about the worldwide prosperity that actual free trade brings.
A Trump victory might also have some downward pressure on prices, as trade restrictions are lifted, though that is not likely to in any way compensate for the near to mid term inflationary pressures that a massive re-industrialization is going to entail.
To sum up, I am cautiously hopeful, but very, VERY concerned. There are many ways this can go sideways to very bad outcomes, and a few that will be wonderful....IF some pretty amazingly unlikely historical bank-shots happen.
We live in interesting times.
As noted above my qualifications to opine on this matter are....slim. So here are a few people who might, or might not be better positioned to make an informed observation.
Link here. I...have no idea what that means.
Bill Ackman has thoughts: Somewhat pollyannish thoughts in my opinion, but thoughts. (and his expertise is in this area)
.
@VDHanson
makes a compelling case for the
@realDonaldTrump
tariff strategy, but gets one issue incorrect. He describes the Trump tariffs as reciprocal and proportional to those other nations have assessed on us.
In actuality, the Trump tariffs were set at levels substantially above, and in many cases, at a multiple of the counterparty country’s tariff levels.
Initially, the market responded favorably, up more than one percent when Trump referred to ‘reciprocal tariffs’ in his Rose Garden speech. It was only when he put up a chart showing the actual tariffs that the markets plunged.
We can divine from this response that market participants are supportive of the administration using tariffs as a tool to lower the asymmetrical tariffs of our trading partners, but are highly concerned with tariff levels set well in excess of a corresponding country’s levels.
So why did Trump take this approach?
The answer goes back to ‘The Art of the Deal.’ Trump’s negotiating style is to ask for the moon and then settle somewhere in between. It has worked well for him in the past so he is using the same approach here.
The market’s response is due to the fear that if this strategy fails and the tariffs stay in place, they will plunge our economy into a recession. And we don’t need to wait for failure as it doesn’t take long for a high degree of uncertainty to cause economic activity to slow.
Press reports today have said that all deals are now on hold. This is not surprising. Capitalism is a confidence game. Uncertainty is the enemy of business confidence.
The good news is that a number of countries have already approached the negotiating table to make tariff deals, which suggests that Trump’s strategy is beginning to work. Whether this is enough to settle markets next week is unknowable, but we will find out soon.
The idea that Wall Street and investors are opposed to the President’s efforts to bring back our industrial base by leveling the tariff playing field is false. Our trading partners have taken advantage of us for decades after tariffs were no longer needed to help them rebuild their economies after WWII.
The market is simply responding to Trump’s shock and awe negotiating strategy and factoring in some probability that it will fail or otherwise lead to an extended period of uncertainty that will sink us into a recession.
The market decline has been compounded by losses incurred at so-called pod shops and other highly levered market participants that have been forced to liquidate positions as markets have declined.
Stocks of even the best companies are now trading at the cheapest valuations we have seen since Covid. If the President makes continued progress on tariff deals, uncertainty will be reduced, and the market will begin to recover.
As more countries come to the table, those that have held out or have reciprocated with higher tariffs will have growing concerns about being left behind. This should cause more countries to negotiate deals until we reach a tipping point where it is clear that the strategy will succeed. When this occurs, stocks will soar.
Trump’s strategy is not without risk, but I wouldn’t bet against him. The more that markets support the President and his strategy, the higher the probability that he succeeds, so a stable hand on the trading wheel is a patriotic one.
An important characteristic of a great leader is a willingness to change course when the facts change or when the initial strategy is not working. We have seen Trump do this before. Two days in, however, it is much too early to form a view about his tariff strategy.
Trump cares enormously about our economy and the stock market as a measure of his performance. If the current strategy works, he will continue to execute on it. If it needs to be tweaked or changed, I expect he will make the necessary changes. Based on the early read, his strategy appears to be working.
Let’s help him succeed. It’s the least we can do.
Over at American Greatness they have some defense of the ethics of Trump's move. Less on the repercussions.
Remember the brief mention above of "tearing the system down?" Well, Nick Freitas and crew have dome disquisitions on the matter.
Dad Saves America does a play by play of Trump's speech, and has analysis and criticism.
Over at Money and Macro, they have a more sanguine take... That somewhat comports with Freitas's stream above.
Me?
I don't know.
But I think we're in for a ride.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:41 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 2758 words, total size 22 kb.
March 17, 2025
A Different Perspective on the Holiday
"...and THAT'S why our ancestors left Ireland for America"
Artist Unknown
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:46 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.
March 15, 2025
Thoughts on The Mahmoud Khalil Mess
Mahmoud Khalil is a waste of skin that can be better utilized by burn victims.
But so were those other NAZIs in Skokie 48 years ago.
The fact that he has so many allies amongst our most educated, allies who are indisputably citizens and canNOT (and should not) be exiled for mere words is a pretty horrific development that presents a far more thorny issue for our society that this specific people shaped colostomy bag does.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:10 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 82 words, total size 1 kb.
March 11, 2025
In Lieu of Content Here Are Some Links.
Somewhat related: Neo on the only recently appreciated excellent state of American health.
A Break from Politics and a look at a hopeful future. Isaac Arthur on Aldrin Cyclers:
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:20 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.
1024kb generated in CPU 0.1332, elapsed 0.2933 seconds.
77 queries taking 0.2506 seconds, 426 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
77 queries taking 0.2506 seconds, 426 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
