Yeah. As much as anything else does these days. Ai yi yi.
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We really do need to go back to less interesting times… stat!
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Because “beat them with a stick and see what shakes loose” doesn’t sound as eloquent as “market manipulation.”
Meanwhile Trump is standing there like “I’m gonna beat em with a stick and see what shakes loose.”
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Indeed… and now i’m back to thinking about how the authoritarian way of running things is just scaled up bully logic - in this case aimed at international trade. And I guess to some people, it’s evidence of Trump “doing something” and taking these big, complex systems in hand…
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I wondered if there was not some degree of collusion to profit from this, particularly after witnessing the huge bump that followed the merest rumor of this yesterday. He may not be smart enough to think of this on his own, but he is smart enough to see it and figure out that he can make it happen easily enough.
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So… pump-n-dump? 
I think that maybe it’s just fun to type… pump-n-dump…
Probably… Trump is an idiot, but he’s also been in business since the 70s… he might have learned enough about manipulating stocks to be able to see how something like this could work. Like much other criminal, bully logic, I’m not sure it takes much “genius” to pull it off.
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Imagine if a woman flailed around like this . . .
Erratic! Rash! Impulsive! Unpredictable! Crazed out of her mind! Post-Menopausal? Angry at her husband?
The whole “admirable dominance” thing would be unthinkable.
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I read Germinal in university; a bleaker story has rarely been written.
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I think Trump is easily opportunistic enough to take advantage of the market crash. But everything he says tells me that he is too dumb to understand how spending money can be good for the economy, whether buying things from other countries or the government investing in keeping America running. And I don’t think this needs much more explanation than that.
I will note Trump has been in business since the 70s, and the number one thing he’s known for is not paying people. This is just him trying not to pay anyone on an international scale.
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Hopefully, by the end of this month, he’ll have Carney to deal with; someone who actually does know about these big, complex systems.
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Oh yeah, for sure… but I’d also argue that he’s pushing to run the global economy like a for-profit business…
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And he can’t possibly admit it was a bad idea to begin with. See also signal-gate, where his instinct to not “give The Atlantic a win” won over the fact he was mad at Walz.
In any event, this will fix nothing because the unpredictability is just as bad as the actual tariffs. The world is divesting from the US and pauses for negotiation will not change that. Shipping from China has essentially halted and they are writing down the cost of the stuff already on the water. No one is going to restart because of this temporary stay.
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I’m only a few minutes into this, but it’s so good. Adam Conover and Trae Crowder should do more stuff together.
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He’s taking credit for the stock market, something about his negotiating skills.
He doesn’t do maths very well.
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Can we start that project now? Please?
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Peter Navarro is so dumb…
How dumb is he?
…he’s so dumb that he could go bankrupt running a global pump-and-dump scheme!
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Which is the least of the blows this retreat will deal to his image. Many orange bricks crumbled away from the tough guy facade today.
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