Wall Street stocks tumble as investors fret over US economic slowdown
286 comments
·March 10, 2025rekabis
doctorpangloss
Yeah, land… you know US CRE is on the precipice of disaster, Chinese RE had some huge disasters. And the best opportunity for RE came and went in 2009. Meanwhile the top S&P500 stocks were not the top in 2009, even Apple had already released the iPhone back then. I understand you are making a colorful comment. But “real estate tycoon” isn’t the antagonist for many people.
h2zizzle
That's if they're allowed to force the liquidity hose to stay open. An alternative future is one where everyone's bets get called in (as should happen during a downturn). The richest are far more underwater in an asset bubble pop environment than the rest of us are. Remember who bailed out who in 2008.
Force them to close their existing obligations. People will be able to keep their land (albeit worth phenomenally less).
paxys
The standard move is to hunker down for the next 4 years, keep buying low, and wait for Democrats to come back and fix things in their next term. The same cycle has repeated what, 5 times in the last 30 years?
davidw
These people are breaking things that cannot be fixed quite so easily. Things like the trust of other nations. Scientific research. There are a lot of things that will take a generation or more to repair, if ever.
stvltvs
They seem to be doing their best to break the American wealth machine so bad that we could see lost decades like Japan did.
atypeoferror
To be fair, the sub-prime lending crisis had its roots firmly in Clinton-era repeal of Glass-Steagal, so it’s not all so easy.
No particular love for the Republican Party, but it’s a problem created by the Democrats, which they then patched with the inferior Frank-Dodd. Plenty of stupidity to go around, I would say.
rayiner
Glass-Steagal was repealed by a GOP Congress. And the 2009 bailouts were Obama’s implementation of a plan devised by the Bush administration.
That said in economic and trade policy there’s not much difference between Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama. All support free movement of goods and labor. The only difference was in how big of a welfare state to have to mitigate the negative effects.
Aunche
> the sub-prime lending crisis had its roots firmly in Clinton-era repeal of Glass-Steagal
Not really. You'd just have very highly correlated financial entities that would have collapsed the exact same way. AIG received the largest bailout and wasn't even a bank.
> they then patched with the inferior Frank-Dodd.
Dodd Frank is why the finance sector was stable despite all the volatility introduced by the pandemic and inflation. The culture of banking has significantly shifted to being more conservative now, and risk has moved to the buy-side of trading, which is easier to let go of. Trump partially rolled back regulations such that banks under $250 billion no longer had to had to conduct stress tests, and bank collapses occurred all the way up to that threshold.
Trasmatta
Hopefully there's still a free and fair election in 4 years. That might be contingent on how well Democrats do in next year's election. We need Congress back.
swarnie
Or look somewhere else.
I'm not sure i want to stick money in a country that could implode every four years.
AlecSchueler
The standard relationship with the US is gone, though. I've been moving everything out and it won't be coming back regardless of what happens in 4 years time.
Trasmatta
Remember, this is the president that won largely because of people's dissatisfaction with inflation, and his promises to "fix" the economy.
Instead, he's decided to wage a pointless trade war that nobody asked for, and came out yesterday essentially saying he's totally okay with a recession coming out of it.
The only thing more absurd is the fact that some people didn't see this coming. He signalled everything that he's doing now during his campaign, over and over.
I will say I'm pretty happy with how badly TSLA is doing.
voidhorse
> The only thing more absurd is the fact that some people didn't see this coming. He signalled everything that he's doing now during his campaign, over and over.
Right, I think it's less that they "didn't see it coming" and more so a basic lack of understanding around how anything works and a complete trust in perceived wealth and authority.
The vast majority of people I know that fell into the camp of voting this into power follow a basic equational logic of "he is a (presumably) wealthy businessman he must know about how to manage money, therefore he can fix the economy" that's literally the entire depth to which they go. There's zero investigation into the validity of the premises, no question of the (ridiculous) assumption that governance must be exactly like running a business, no concern over the kind of business the person has background in... etc.
I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I'd also be confident conjecturing that, for a huge number of people, this basic, shallow, completely flawed argument is precisely why they made the choice that they made. That and a pervasive inability to recall what things were like a mere four or so years prior.
H1Supreme
I'm in an area of the country in which he won easily in the polls. Whenever I hear the "run the country like a business" line, I always ask "What's the product? And who is the customer?". I haven't received an actual answer yet.
jrs235
And how does it make a profit and what does it do with a profit?
Perhaps ask if they think we should hire more LEOs to sit on the roads to write more traffic tickets to generate revenue to make profits to pay for more things including salaries and bonuses to our government officials... Like how businesses run (paying bonuses for being more profitable). What perverse incentives and outcomes might that lead to?
null
philk10
and being fed a diet of propaganda from Fox, FB etc
intended
The core base is also given a flawed understanding of how anything around them works. America has been enduring under a self inflicted information and disinformation war for decades now.
Some amount of swing voters may have done so because of inflation - but a large number of voters didn’t show up.
There was also ample evidence that he was going to engage in trade wars. In November, I was already checking with friends in finance and banking what the amount of stress the global financial system could endure.
This is very much like the 2008 crisis, in that low information consumers are being misled by corporations with massive teams, marketing and financial power.
Its an uncompetitive market of ideas, being foisted on viewers and information consumers.
jghn
You're not wrong. And yet he's polling well. And as long as people poll surface level questions like "do you like that he's cutting things?" he gets general support.
Drill into specific topics item by item and it's a bleaker picture however. But that's how these things always go, like the ACA for instance.
Trasmatta
He's still in the honeymoon period for approval ratings. Even given that, he's barely above water.
intended
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/10/trump-maga-inc-power-fundra...
It looks like there is preparation for low polling numbers. A fund to ensure that senators and lawmakers will toe the line or be primaried.
ethbr1
He did get elected at 49.9% of the popular vote... so there's not exactly a lot of natural approval margin in there for him.
johnnyanmac
A honeymoon with 40's approval ratings in a then "good" economy says a lot in and of itself. Wonder if he'll set the global record this time by the time he leaves office. He somehow just missed bottom 5 in his first term
idle_zealot
This analysis is lacking. People didn't vote for Trump because they analyzed his proposed economic policies and decided they would improve their situation. Almost nobody votes like that. There's general financial anxiety in the US, and he promised to fix it. What methods he proposed using are almost irrelevant, it's the rhetoric around them that sways voters.
The narrative is now one of temporary hardship to excise the supposed rot of the system that is the root cause of the aforementioned anxiety. Pointing out that inflation is bad has no persuasive power over someone bought in on that narrative.
The only way to sway general support away from this self-destructive administration is to offer another path towards alleviating the problems that voters face in their lives. The time when you could run on promises of competent administration alone has passed.
usefulcat
It's not enough to have a plan, as a sibling commenter pointed out. Looks more like straight-up irrational team-based tribalism to me. That and ordinary ignorance. How else do you explain a Republican candidate campaigning on raising taxes and winning?
idle_zealot
It's not about the concrete details of a plan, it's the feeling, the messaging and the rhetoric. Kamala did not read that the electorate wanted a promise of dramatic action, and ran on competent administration and minor, incremental improvements while largely staying the course. That does not motivate people upset with the status quo to come out and vote.
sanktanglia
You are ignoring how trump focused far more on hurting people they don't like(immigrants , trans people and minorities) than on any actual economic policy. He and the Republicans fomented a hate wave and he rode it right back into the White House. So damn shameful for this country
adamc
Yep. MAGA is a hate movement.
idle_zealot
You're not wrong, but there's more to it than just hate. The tactic is to associate the real problems, economic insecurity, social isolation, etc with groups that are vulnerable to persecution and that people are primed to hate already. Deporting migrants is the proposed solution to economic woes and and a perception of high crime and low trust/alienation. Likewise the queerbashing and trans hate gets associated with the perceived problem of social discohesion and a general lack of control. These associations have been built up over a long time, and those wrapped up in the right wing media sphere view cruelty as both cathartic and effective means to fix what ails society.
vkou
Harris also promised to fix it, and had an actual plan for addressing housing, education, medical costs, and prices in general, but we are all now pretending like none of that was a part of her campaign.
Anyways, it's telling that everyone who was anxious over $3.50/dozen eggs in November is deathly silent over what's been happening in the past few weeks. All of a sudden, all of those people are now in the 'we have to be patient and get through the pain, there's definitely a payoff at the end' boat.
(Milk's $11/gallon at my grocery, by the way. Unless I buy 5 gallons at a time.)
csa
> Harris also promised to fix it, and had an actual plan for addressing housing, education, medical costs, and prices in general, but we are all now pretending like none of that was a part of her campaign.
Part of that is because there were tons of ads focusing on taxpayer funded sex changes for prisoners (funded by pro-Trump orgs):
I have friends and family in Georgia, supposedly a swing state. They said that they could not escape seeing this add multiple times a day on tv or internet.
Regardless of what one believes about the underlying premise of the ad, it is incredibly narrow in terms of scope, and that narrative stuck.
I have a feeling this is one reason why many folks weren’t aware of her plans.
itsdrewmiller
What kind of milk and what grocery store? That claim beggars belief.
gs17
> Milk's $11/gallon at my grocery
You should shop somewhere else, unless you're in Hawaii or something. That's not a normal price for most of the country.
AnimalMuppet
> The narrative is now one of temporary hardship to excise the supposed rot of the system that is the root cause of the aforementioned anxiety.
OK.
> The only way to sway general support away from this self-destructive administration is to offer another path towards alleviating the problems that voters face in their lives. The time when you could run on promises of competent administration alone has passed.
Disagree. Another three years of this and "temporary hardship" will be exposed as wishful thinking. People will want actual competence.
intended
Faith is stronger than reason. Faith just requires a sign every so often to remind the faithful that the weakness wasn’t in their leader, it was in their zealousness and inability to believe in the greater invisible plan.
You are up against zealots and cult behavior, not being up front about this results in plans for a different reality.
johnnyanmac
Of course That is how they vote. But their analysis isn't on the impact of tarriffs nor the economic strength of trade.
It's on egg prices and job market vibes and other everyday sorts of stuff. He promised he'd fix those. And it seems the center seokg voters are facing a lot of regret on that right now.
Balgair
Not to derail here, but yeah, TSLA needed to get out of meme stock territory for a long time now. Its been hurting the underlying business.
Now, the big question is if the meme is gone, or just turned sour. Either way, I'm not seeing people going back to TSLA with Elon's antics.
corry
My guess is that his supporters are so entrenched in their position that they won't care. Trump channelled their anger at how broken the American Dream has become, and they're probably OK getting personally singed if it means the whole thing burns down.
However, it will likely be a rude awakening on the other side for them, especially if they find that some of their entitlements were cut (just as they come to need them most), and meanwhile yet again the rich and powerful not only are fine but the gap continues to widen at an even faster rate.
Even then, I doubt his supporters will turn on him.
Remember, even Hitler had support from the average Germans after the end of the war (at least before the holocaust and other atrocities came to light to them). I'm not saying Trump is Hitler, just showing how you can lose everything and still not accept that your cherished leader wasn't such a smart or great guy...
jrs235
Making Aging Generations Angry
JumpCrisscross
> they find that some of their entitlements were cut (just as they come to need them most), and meanwhile yet again the rich and powerful not only are fine but the gap continues to widen at an even faster rate
I’m honestly not seeing a way out of this for the die-hard MAGAs other than letting them age out. The problem is less that idiot 20% and more the Obama-Trump crossover voters. They’re the ones we should fight to win back.
johnnyanmac
Depends on why the crossed over.
I argue a lot of D's are simply Disempowerd. Getting those people back needs a candidate actually fighting for their demands and not just keeping in tow with the establishment
LatteLazy
Be careful taking people seriously when they claim to have voted a given way for a given reason; especially a specific reason. They’re usually false claims.
skippyboxedhero
One of the weirdest views of Democrats is thinking that because the market has dropped 2% then individual voters are out there with their head in their hands thinking the world has ended.
If you go back a few years and the government (largely the Fed) was destroying the economy, you never saw this type of comment. It seems to be that Democrats specifically cannot think of politics in any terms other than personal, or (indeed) of government function as anything other than a thing that bestows personal benefit. There is no discussion of content, it is just pure personal vitriol constantly.
You see the same thing with left-wing voters in other countries too. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a situation where government spending is massive, most of that spending is handouts, and actual government function has collapsed. Milton Friedman wins again.
archagon
Meanwhile, Republicans are pushing for a $4T debt ceiling increase and $4.5T in tax cuts. Talk about handouts!
softwaredoug
After the election I know Canadian and colleagues from other countries thought of moving to US for an easier time building a business. Curious if anyone from the founder / small business crowd has had this feeling and either is still interested/happy with such a move? Or regretting it?
IIRC Culturally it was said by many that the US is much better that EU / Canada for building a business as US rewards ambition. While other countries it’s seen as not as positive of an attribute. Other countries did not let you easily build wealth or grow a business, while it was said US is culturally more welcoming to building wealth.
I’m curious how this will change in this administration.
swat535
To be fair, as a Canadian, I think starting a business anywhere else is better than in Canada, except maybe Germany? (Apologies to our dear Germans; my sense of humor isn’t the best.)
CamelCaseName
Why? I have started two small businesses in Canada with reasonable success (not enough to retire, but a nice payday each time), there was nothing particularly onerous either time.
bad_user
The US makes startups easier due to easy access to capital from investors. OTOH, I'd be wary of starting a lifestyle business in the US due to the poor social safety net.
Red tape is also a concern, but it depends on what European country you're talking of, some are better than others, and red tape is awful in the US as well, depending on the state.
Those are basically the only considerations, everything else (like culture) is BS.
robocat
Be thankful you're not in New Zealand. Our current government claims to be business oriented, but they appear to desire to screw our economy. Partly because of trying to appeal to voters that are generally socialist here (a strong preference to hobble greedy business owners and often little sympathy for anyone who exports something to bring a USD into the country). Short sighted policy goals aiming to sell off anything to overseas "investors". When everything is for sale, we all lose. Eventually there will be fewer productive export businesses left to pay for our free healthcare, our retiree's superannuation or our other welfare benefits. Lose lose. Our socialist policies are good and humane, but they are hard to balance against economic growth.
We lack economic balance over here even though we have MMP voting. Swinging leftwards and less leftwards (NZ is mostly lefty) seems to be the only way we achieve a modicum of compromise over the years.
The US idolises successful business owners (even the notorious are validated).
NZ does have a couple of successful tech companies that list in Australia (e.g. Xero) or moved to the US (e.g. RocketLab). They often keep engineering in NZ because staff are skilled and cheap.
null
__loam
If the economy crashes I hope we can put a stake through the heart of the obsession with founders.
mmastrac
The American economy is a giant magnet right now -- after the inevitable crash I think that innovation would be a lot more distributed and that'll be a good thing.
Rastonbury
Kind of already happening with Asian/Chinese chip companies and will happen to European defence
belter
The Russian Ruble is up 3%. (No joke) https://www.google.com/finance/quote/RUB-USD
Havoc
Doubt anyone would think it’s a joke.
At this point the Oval Office may as well be redecorated in Soviet red
Frederation
Thats Soviet Red white and blyat.
mantas
Ruble exchange rate is propaganda. It was not possible to freely convert it for a long time. And black market rate was always very different from the official one.
AlexeyBelov
That's not true. I'm sending money to my mother in Russia from time to time and the exchange rate is close to real.
mullingitover
They're going to completely remove sanctions on Russia before long, so that's not terribly surprising.
null
adrr
Trump says he wants to start Nord Stream pipeline which means Europe will buy less American natural gas and replace it with Russian natural gas.
wahern
Such a curious dance. About 5 years ago the headline was, "President Donald Trump has signed a law that will impose sanctions on any firm that helps Russia's state-owned gas company, Gazprom, finish [Nord Stream 2]." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50875935 Of course, Trump isn't the only one to do an about-face. In 2019, Germany supported Nord Stream 2, but now opposes Russian gas imports.
skippyboxedhero
It isn't a curious dance.
The story that the parent is referring to, so far, hasn't actually been attributed to anyone in the govt. A US-based consortium is trying to get it reopened, the FT weren't able to say who this person met with, one of the people thought to be involved (a German) denied meeting with anyone, and there is no actual evidence of anyone in the government saying they are working on this...it is just a story that aligned with something that the journalist thinks the US govt is doing...but was unable to produce any evidence of this.
What is possible is for NS2 to come into ownership of the US who will be able to cut it off when they choose. One of the issues with NS2, as Trump said before the war but the EU literally laughed at him for saying, was that it would make an invasion of Ukraine possible.
In reality, Russia was still paying Ukraine transit fees until earlier this year. So NS2 didn't actually make a difference because Ukraine kept transiting Russian gas through the war. It made a difference before the war because Russia thought Ukraine would cut them off, Germany didn't listen and Putin gambled based on this that Germany would keep NS2 open.
The time to do something was BEFORE the invasion...obviously.
bparsons
This is all looking like a strategy to intentionally depress asset valuations so that they can be acquired at fire sale prices.
seanicus
Yeah, this has read to me as another double win for the Disaster Capitalist class. I'm sure we'll be seeing record profits for the s & p 500 by year's end no matter the outcome for the rest of us.
maxglute
Times needs to get less interesting.
fatbird
Peter Navarro is the big driver of Trump's economic approach (and he's a mercantilist quack):
https://hatchetmedia.substack.com/p/the-man-behind-trumps-wa... (podcast with Justin Ling, a great independent journalist)
and https://www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/beggar-thy-neighbor-be...
insane_dreamer
also a long-time China hawk (like on the far end of hawkism)
fatbird
And Canadians, apparently!
"the only diplomats who were more treacherous and disingenuous than the Canadians were the Communist Chinese."
insane_dreamer
To be fair, Canada is the only country that has ever invaded the US :)
BenFranklin100
Tesla stock has been particularly hammered. Ontario apparently cancelled a Starlink contract and Italy is considering to do so as well. Musk’s political antics are affecting his businesses.
JumpCrisscross
The fact that Canada, Mexico, China and the EU haven’t banned Tesla imports yet is remarkable. I’d expect that plus additional registration charges on premium vehicles, especially Cybertrucks, within a year if this continues.
ChocolateGod
> The fact that Canada, Mexico, China and the EU haven’t banned Tesla imports yet is remarkable.
Why do they need to? They can just apply tariffs and let the consumer do it without the political baggage.
JumpCrisscross
> Why do they need to?
Messaging and frankly national security.
bparsons
They don't have to. Sales are falling off a cliff in all those places.
mattmaroon
Yeah, I think Tesla would be in approximately the same position if Elon never jumped into the political fray. Their market cap has been beyond ludicrous for years. Any slowdown in sales was due to crater the stock.
The Cybertruck is a turd, driverless cabs seem still not that close. The early adopters all have EVs and sales growth as a whole has plateaued. Other automakers have greatly improved their offerings, and Tesla's vehicle quality and fit-and-finish have both remained poor. The EV tax credits are probably going away soon.
One doesn't have to tip the scales against them at the moment.
boo-ga-ga
But he continues doing what he started. Considering the fact that he is very smart and definitely hungry for absolute power, you can think about his true goal. If he is ready to risk that much of his worth, it means that the potential win for him will bring so much more.
bayarearefugee
Elon isn't particularly smart and his continuing to do what he started is pretty much entirely ego driven. He's afraid he'll look like a bitch if he throws the towel in now.
Of course, in reality, he's looked like a bitch since at least 2018.
mullingitover
> Considering the fact that he is very smart
Is he though?
Plenty of people start out smart and then melt their brains in one way or another. Musk really seems like he's going down the same road.
Smarts aren't a permanent state of being, they're a temporary blessing, and if you're lucky they're slowly replaced with wisdom as you age. Musk doesn't seem to be getting the late-life migration to wisdom. Wise elders generally focus on a legacy that benefits their community, they don't spout slurs and pay people to make them look like they're good at video games.
helle253
Elon's strong legacy is imo masking a mental decline. People are excusing behavior on his part because of what he's built in the past but imo its not so simple.
Differentiating between 5d chess and delusional behavior is not easy. I'm personally inclined to think its the latter, but there's admittedly room for debate.
The reason I think this is because it is failure mode that is not uncommon in highly driven, egocentric geniuses. Especially one individual who has stated on record that they are taking ketamine, a powerful dissociative drug.
eli_gottlieb
Or he's misestimating his potential wins because he's on tons of drugs and they're giving him delusions of grandeur.
spacemadness
This seems like the closest thing to an Occam’s razor take to me. If all his companies crash and burn from his unhinged behavior, he’s not going to be useful to other billionaires or as powerful regardless. The fact so much of his wealth is in Tesla, a company that relies on climate conscious consumers, and he throws around nazi salutes in a heavily watched and historical event makes no sense at all. Meanwhile the administration is dismantling anything that would help EVs. It’s not 5D chess, sorry. I wonder what Tesla engineers and others inside the company think about all this.
insane_dreamer
> that the potential win for him will bring so much more.
what do you think is the potential win for him?
ModernMech
Vast control over the US Federal Government and impunity for him and all his companies to violate the law.
It's hard to put a price on the power to fire people investigating your company for wrongdoing.
Or the power to blow up starships even though you were told by the government you can't launch more because you blew up the last one, raining down debris on everyone and causing their flights to be grounded.
Wouldn't you love to be able to do that without any repercussions?
Or to test your driverless car tech on public roads and not get in trouble no matter how many people they kill.
Or to sell your unsold vehicle inventory, that's building up because your product is a boondoggle, directly to the government.
Or the power to bully foreign governments into using your product with the full backing of the United States military.
Or to award yourself and your companies government contracts worth billions of dollars without having to bid or compete over them.
Or to train your fledgling AI on all the information you're scraping about Americans from government data sources unavailable to your competitors.
Or to cancel government projects that benefit your competitors, like killing investments in EV charging infrastructure, forcing everyone to use the one you own.
Or to test your brain implant on human subjects without the pesky FDA up your ass making sure it's done "humanely".
On and on and on. The corruption is just endless if you're creative enough...
BenFranklin100
You mistake IQ for judgement.
They are related but distinct.
gadders
This site is living proof of that.
nickvec
> Musk's political antics are affecting his businesses.
The scary part is that he doesn't care. Money is no longer his motive.
stvltvs
It's called "fuck _me_ money", and it's one reason billionaires shouldn't exist.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamCarolla/comments/5jfeoz/whats_t...
__loam
[flagged]
BenFranklin100
-2?
I see DOGE/Musk fanbois frequent Hacker News.
JKCalhoun
It'll be wild to see how Congress responds.
cyberlurker
We’ve been waiting for Congress to respond for weeks. I wouldn’t hold your breath.
JKCalhoun
With talk of a anticipated 10% to 20% drop in the markets, their silence could be ruinous.
jghn
SP500 is already down 10% in the last month
Bhilai
Or they are silently buying the dip till the midterms.
bongodongobob
NASDAQ is already down 11.5% in the last month.
ethbr1
They're busy trying to pass a continuing resolution on Republican-only votes the keep the government open.
Because heaven forbid both parties compromise.
rufus_foreman
The stock market falls by 10% or more on average every 1.2 years: https://www.covenantwealthadvisors.com/post/understanding-st....
There were 5 such drops in 2020, 4 in 2022, and 1 in 2023. Somehow, the nation avoided ruin during those periods.
moribvndvs
Did you mean decades?
mattmaroon
It's commonly said Presidents get 100 days in office to enact the bulk of their platform. It's an approximation, of course, but it's about then that the new-to-office approval rating bump starts to wane and Congress starts gearing up for midterms. We're about half way there.
If the economy is in bad shape in May, I would not be surprised if Congress intervenes on tariffs. The fear of being primaried by MAGA loyalists will become smaller than the fear of losing to the other party very rapidly if a tariff-induced bad economy is the result.
The constitution gives Congress the power, but they've delegated it to the President, which means they can take it back. They will if losing elections seems likely.
SlightlyLeftPad
It should be clear now that the GOP has nearly total and absolute control over the MAGA base, meaning they will take whatever spin they’ve been given by the party.
In other words, the GOP can do whatever it wants or nothing at all and it will get little pushback from their voters. That’s a pretty powerful position to be in as a party.
bryanlarsen
They get little pushback from ~95% of their voters. However, the last 5% of their voters are center/center-right voters, and it's those voters that flipped the election from Biden/Harris to Trump and are presumably willing to flip back.
jrs235
I wish I had your optimism. Too many Republicans lack a spine and likely think their best chance of survival is actually to do nothing.
JumpCrisscross
> If the economy is in bad shape in May
Would note that we’re still only seeing leading indicators and forecasts crash. Even real GDP can be dismissed as a calculation. Job losses, on the other hand, will be obvious corpses. Unfortunately, those might take until the fall to pile up.
seanmcdirmid
Trump crossed the threshold from being more unpopular than popular this week. If history is any guide, he won't recover from that during his term https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker
johnnyanmac
Congress already made their bed with the cuts to medaid in order to fund capital tax cuts. I wouldn't be surprised if Florida completely flips next month unless the senators wake up.
ModernMech
You're framing this as an incentive for them to moderate their positions, but I'm reading it as a motive for them to rig elections.
mattmaroon
I don't think either party ever didn't have that incentive. If elections could feasibly be rigged then they already are I'm sure.
sanktanglia
You think sebete republicans are going to have a spine? Boy do you have wayyy more faith in them than they deserve.
insane_dreamer
> Congress intervenes on tariffs
the tariffs on Canada/Mexico haven't gone into effect yet and Trump may yet again change his mind or end up keeping it restricted to a few select industries (i.e. steel) who are clamoring for it (my guess is the latter)
As for China, I think many in Congress from both parties are supportive of them, so I would expect those to stay
bryanlarsen
They certainly have gone into effect. They've been paused on USMCA covered goods, but that's only 1/3rd of the goods from Canada and 1/2 from Mexico.
intended
Why? Congress is majority republican, who have been under selection pressure to be party faithful. If that fails, they are getting death threats to stay in line.
The Republican strategy is to punish bi-partisan efforts.
From a Dem standpoint, its simpler to point out the fact that they have no real power, and let the Republicans take the heat.
What can Congress do?
adamc
So far the Republicans haven't been willing to do anything except go along. They are inert.
null
Stocks won’t fall as far as the economy, so when people start selling off everything not nailed down just for tomorrow’s food, the wealthy can swoop in and buy it all up for pennies on the dollar.
It’s the whole game plan, after all. Land, especially: generally speaking no-one is really making any more land all that fast, and when it comes down to your family starving or selling off your land for food, the land goes pretty f**king cheap and pretty damn fast.
By this method, the Parasite Class will end up owning all the land and everything in it, and the entire Working Class will become the modern version of tenement farmers or those living in company towns - slaves, essentially.