2025 Recession Indicators Hit Fashion and Wall Street at Once
170 comments
·April 3, 2025senderista
kubb
I’m curious to see how they are going to fumble this.
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k_roy
I wanted to argue...
then I couldn't
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mmooss
It's also a tax on everyone, to the benefit of large corporations which can now increase prices / decrease value), due to less competition.
trhway
Which is one of the reasons the countries with high tariffs have had worse economy overall and specifically much worse than the US economy. The higher your tariffs the worse the protected industry and the whole economy.
mmooss
Yes - with free trade, the US is the wealthiest economy in the history of the world. Economic research says it works. What is the reasoning for throwing it away?
I hear the nonsense reasoning from the Trump crowd, but many know it's nonsense even as they say it. What is their real goal here?
davidw
Even Mike Pence came out and said that.
Izikiel43
Is this a sign republicans in congress may do something?
jghn
Only a carefully selected subset. Just enough of the most vulnerable of them so they can be on record as being against this, but not enough of them to change any outcomes.
ncallaway
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get enough Republicans in congress to pass a law taking the tariff power away from Trump, but Trump will veto that law.
I would be quite surprised if we can get enough Republicans to override that veto
fullshark
No, Mike Pence is a villain to Trumpist republicans. He speaks for the old guard republicans who still think this is all just a temporary blip and populism will be forgotten in 4-8 years.
soupfordummies
Coming right on the heels of the largest layoff in US history (which is still ongoing, depending on your definition).
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KerrAvon
How would they get the message out even if they had one? Republicans own the media.
AlexandrB
Which media? Most "traditional" media is quite left leaning.
mostlysimilar
First of all you might want to update that assumption, but traditional media aside Zuckerberg is all in on the clown show and he owns the major social media platforms.
weard_beard
If you mean they're not yet state controlled mouthpieces of a conservative dictator, sure, I guess that counts as left leaning?
I see a lot of shock and gossip.
And a LOT of reporting about how the dictator is pissing off his rich enablers.
I guess if you consider the left and the right to both be bootlickers of the oligarchs we're both right.
I don't see a lot of content that supports your thesis I guess.
basisword
They won’t even need to spin it. People are going to feel it very quickly.
trhway
and done purely on Presidential authority without Congress.
Izikiel43
Matt Levine on his column today went over this.
AnimalMuppet
No taxation without representation!
theultdev
[flagged]
SamoyedFurFluff
This is assuming America is even capable of producing what it needs to generate jobs or investment. There’s no point in taxing coffee from Africa; America doesn’t produce competing coffee! There’s no point in tariffing specialized electronics from China that Apple needs; US literally doesn’t have the capacity to produce these and the investment to do so will be inefficient as American labor is better put to service and knowledge sector work to produce more Apple product designs (just one example).
This is just going to make the American economy more inefficient, less able to compete internationally, and devalue American interests globally, which means America will have less clout to privilege their citizens with.
theultdev
There's no point in Africa taxing imports from us under that logic?
They lower it, we lower it.
mmooss
> There will be more of a hit as we transition to domestic manufacturing, but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
That's not how it works. It protects inefficient companies, reduces competition, and lets them pocket more of consumers money. I'm sure they will 'share' it with their labor force.
The US is and has been fully employed without it, so it can't really add jobs. The US has plenty of investment, and it will cut foreign investment - many of those factories are owned by foreign companies. It shifts the workforce to less productive work which will hurt the economy as well.
It will keep money out of our economy too. Economics doesn't work by keeping money in your pocket.
> There will be more of a hit ... but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
Have you heard of 'trickle-down economics'? That was the theory that if we cut taxes on the wealthy, they will spend/invest more and it will 'trickle down' to everyone else. Guess what happened? Only the first step - the certain one - ever happened. The magical future never did.
It's the same here. It's just a hit for the benefit of a few; that's it. No economist thinks protectionism boosts the economy.
> In addition, other countries could simply loosen their restrictions and tariffs.
The DARVO idea that others are somehow blocking US investment - which dominates the world - has no foundation. Poor countries, of course, don't want their entire economy controlled by some trader on Wall Street.
JohnFen
> There will be more of a hit as we transition to domestic manufacturing, but it will generate jobs, investment, and keep money in our economy.
I would be very surprised if this is the result, but I'm willing to be very surprised.
For now, though, the manufacturing company that I work for, as well as a couple of others I know about, are likely going to close their facilities in the US because of these tariffs. It's simply not economically feasible to pay a tax every time we ship materials from one plant to another in a different country.
If they can't operate efficiently in the US, then they're looking at just ignoring the US market entirely. The rest of the world is a plenty large enough market to address.
lentil_soup
Which restrictions and tariffs are these?
theultdev
You want me to detail all countries' tariff policies?
Are you insinuating that these countries have no tariffs in place, or...?
I believe it's quite clear the imbalance of many markets. Automobiles being the most distinct, but every product tariffed varies by country.
edit: rate-limited, I'm not allowed to talk anymore I guess...
basisword
>> In addition, other countries could simply loosen their restrictions and tariffs.
You can keep your chlorine washed chicken. I’m sure most of the UK will be happy to pay 10% tariffs if it keeps those out.
theultdev
Sounds good to me :)
You're missing out, our chicken is amazing.
But 10% on your imports is a good trade, I agree.
trhway
>you choose to purchase foreign over domestic, but you have that option.
where can i buy a domestic made iPhone?
>as we transition to domestic manufacturing
manufacturing is capital intensive and has low margins and thus is adversely affected by 2 things the most - unstable environment and high volume based taxes, which both has just significantly increased.
theultdev
And thus you have the $500 billion investment from Apple to build here.
eunos
I still remember when Inverted yield curve was enough to predict recession. Good times.
esafak
I remember when the GOP was the free trade party, and you had to look mercantilism up in the history books because it was dead. President McKinley, from the 1890s, is one of Trump's economic role models. https://fortune.com/2025/03/10/trump-william-mckinley-tariff...
I wonder how pre-MAGA GOP'ers are reconciling this new reality with their existing beliefs.
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bryanlarsen
I remember when we had skilled helmsman that steered the US away from recession despite all the indicators like inverted yield curve screaming recession.
eunos
Probably I'm wrong but if you can do stimulus ad infinitum there won't be recession, but you'll have inflation.
bryanlarsen
Yet it was that same administration that brought inflation back down to its targeted level.
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deepfriedchokes
Hopefully all this will kill forever the idea that the GOP is the party of business. They’re the party of the rich, like the Democrats. When people say both parties are the same, this is what they’re talking about. Not the religion or social justice masks the parties try to hide behind.
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formerly_proven
It's pretty hard as an indicator to miss this, considering that it's one of the very rare times a government loudly and proudly declares it's going to intentionally cause a recession.
bill_joy_fanboy
A lot of supporters of the trade restrictions don't care. They're working people who don't own a lot of stocks and all they've seen is their jobs sent overseas.
To them, it doesn't even matter if things get "worse" for a while. Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Aurornis
> Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Then they’ve failed to imagine how much more difficult their life will become under excessive tariffs.
It’s also eye-opening to watch so many people in my extended family and social network cheer on DOGE and tariffs right until they impact their own jobs. Lot of people out there didn’t connect the dots about how their own jobs were going to be impacted by tariffs.
bill_joy_fanboy
> Then they’ve failed to imagine how much more difficult their life will become under excessive tariffs.
Again, these workers don't have jobs. When the John Deere factory closes down in your town and moves to Mexico, tariffs sound good even if it's just to punish such companies and the abuse of their workers.
If you're unemployed and living on whatever odd jobs and government assistance you can get, tariffs won't make one bit of difference in your life. Factories may even return, and your life may improve. It's better than just accepting your situation.
raytopia
It does matter if things get worse and it's very uncaring to say otherwise. The import taxes are going to make wealth inequality much worse and significantly hurt not just almost all American's but large swathes of the world too.
jgilias
The unemployment rate is near historic lows. Apparently there’s plenty of jobs going round.
Not that that’s going to last if actual economic headwinds hit the economy.
8note
labour participation rate is the number you want to be looking at - unemployment excludes people who have given up looking
anectdotally, you dont see people dropping out of universities en masse because businesses are desperate for workers and willing to make it worth students while to put off or skip the education.
you see that in and out in tech/software dev, but not across industries
kubectl_h
Plenty of his supporters are SMB owners or people that work in trades/factories. This is not a revolution of the indigent. What these people don't realize is even if they make 200K a year and drive an 85K financed F-250, they are effectively in the same class as someone making 50K a year managing a Dollar General. These people have no class awareness and they voted in a representative of the ultra wealthy intent on pillaging our economy. Some may believe that Trump will usher in some era of economic prosperity but they are wrong.
On the other hand Trump will deliver on another, implicit promise to them, which is inflict pain and suffering on a great deal of people they dislike for whatever reason.
bill_joy_fanboy
> What these people don't realize is even if they make 200K a year and drive an 85K financed F-250, they are effectively in the same class as someone making 50K a year managing a Dollar General.
More people making under 50K per year voted for Trump in 2024 than voted for Harris.
Your numbers are off.
tialaramex
> On the other hand Trump will deliver on another, implicit promise to them, which is inflict pain and suffering on a great deal of people they dislike for whatever reason.
Not so implicit, "I will be your retribution".
And this part is very much a normal Republican position. The realisation that Americans will vote for a policy which hurts them so long as it's positioned as hurting the people they hate was key to Republican success.
"Nobody gets kicked in the head" loses in American politics if it's up against "Everybody gets kicked in the head, yes those awful people you don't like will get kicked in the head"
And when your implementation "accidentally" forgets to kick the wealthy in the head? Well the important thing is you kicked people in the head - you're not one of those scum who don't want to kick the awful people in the head.
fullshark
Agreed, Glenn Greenwald of all people had it pegged 8.5 years ago when Trump first won and with Brexit:
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/democrats-trump-and-the-... https://archive.ph/tfd39
I guess Vincent Bevins has the money quote:
> Los Angeles Times’s Vincent Bevins, who wrote that “both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years.” Bevins went on: “Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt.”
kubb
The problem is that the actual solution is taxes and redistribution but if you try that, they’ll lynch you (the very people who would benefit most from it). Better to have weird Trumponomics than that.
spacemadness
All the voters did is allow the elites in rich countries to buy the rest of the country on the cheap once the American economy crashes and burns.
richardw
They don’t have to own stocks. If they like eating and buying household goods then this will affect them negatively. It will help very few people for a long time, even if it goes perfectly to plan.
I’d be extremely surprised if other countries meekly do what Trump wants. There are many options on the table, and change is more likely in a crisis.
christianqchung
> To them, it doesn't even matter if things get "worse" for a while. Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Really? How do you even know that? You think another round of price hikes within the year is unimaginable, which what the economic consensus on immediate tariffs this high predicts?
The unemployment rate is 4%. The amount of liberation day tariff supporters is an order of magnitude higher than that. Pretending that things can't get worse is dangerous and stupid.
Izikiel43
> Their life is already meeting every economic headwind imaginable.
Yet.
Things can always get ~~worst~~ worse.
bill_joy_fanboy
If people don't want things to continue to deteriorate, then the economic disenfranchisement of the American working class must be put to a stop. It's really pretty simple.
rescripting
Things cannot get worst because they can always get worse.
chmorgan_
sources? I can't find any Trump official that is claiming they are trying to intentionally cause a recession.
NortySpock
"minimum 10% tariff on all imported goods and materials" certainly sounds like a way to increase costs.
Increasing costs seems generally worse for an economy than decreasing costs.
I feel like most people could follow this logical chain of reasoning to a conclusion of "thus you have a elevated risk for an economic recession compared to the state of affairs before the tariffs."
pupppet
I haven't announced I would post here therefore this post you are reading does not exist.
sjsdaiuasgdia
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump said in a social media post. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china...
Or as Lord Farquaad put it: "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
guerrilla
They have been told many times and have stated that they accept that as a consequence.
MattGaiser
Does he need to say the word recession? How direct does he need to be?
https://time.com/7266187/trump-recession-tariffs-us-economy-...
belter
From five days before the election...
https://www.vox.com/politics/381637/elon-musk-donald-trump-2...
“If Trump succeeds in forcing through mass deportations, combined with Elon hacking away at the government, firing people and reducing the deficit - there will be an initial severe overreaction in the economy…Market will tumble. But when the storm passes and everyone realizes we are on sounder footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, sustainable economy.”
Musk replied, “Sounds about right.”
raytopia
There's a theory going around that the administration wants to crash the market so they can buy everything up for cheap, in a similar way to what happened in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
At the same time though it seems like the current president has always been pro tariffs even though they are almost always bad for a economy, the reason why the admin is applying a lot more of them is because almost everyone left in the admin's circle is a yes men.
myth_drannon
not buy up everything, but make US national debt servicing cheaper once the interest rates go down (and recession will bring them down).
I highly doubt the current administration can play that kind of 3d chess. Just simple populism.
mmooss
It's both an interesting and tragic phenomenon that seems much broader:
Plausibly, fashion is primarily about sex, especially at the ages when humans are most sexually active. And possibly changes in fashion are really second-order effects of changes in sex:
The most shocking thing, researched and reported but I don't think people grasp the significance, is that young adults are having much less sex.
Sex is among the most fundamental human drives. People can't stop themselves, which is why IMHO it gets such attempts to restrict it, by law and custom and shame, across time and place (to varying degrees). You can be sitting there, clearly knowing you shouldn't do it, and it can be very difficult to stop. All those efforts to stop people, by cultures, religions, governments, parents, etc. have widely failed - people still have pre-marital sex, commit adultry, get drunk and screw, hire prostitutes, watch porn, etc. (I'm not judging.)
Incredibly, now something has actually managed to significantly reduce sexual activity - and among people who are perfectly free to do it. Has that happened before in history (serious question)? Where/when/who is it now happening for and not happening? Speculating on why is perilous without evidence - imho it's just disinformation. But whatever the cause(s), it's a signal of something very serious.
Wearing plainer clothes is possibly just a follow-on effect.
weard_beard
Anecdotally it’s the triple whammy of depression/anxiety, social isolation, and scarcity/precarity.
The precariousness I think is more of a factor as the long term poor have still managed to survive historically. The randomness and changing social safety nets and possibility of needing to migrate to survive is probably a big factor.
It feels like we’re all bracing for the end of the world all the time.
Procreation (or lack of it) is voting “no candidate”. It’s the only control anyone has over their life today.
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hnpolicestate
We were already in a deep recession for regular Americans starting in 2020. Double housing and transportation costs.
The market crash just spreads the pain to the investment class and retired boomers.
Izikiel43
So, instead of striving for a better life, you are saying they took the approach if I'm going down I'm taking you with me?
hnpolicestate
Class warfare is as old as time. It's your mistake to wave aside human nature.
honkycat
I got downvoted here the other day for saying Republicans are low-information voters.
My friends and countrymen: welcome to Trump's vision for the US. He is doing exactly what he said he would.
rtp4me
And honestly, you should have been downvoted for calling them "low-information" voters. Not only is it condescending, you simply discounted them for being part of the "other" party. Perhaps they are very informed - maybe much more than you regarding the deficit, the economy, their frustrations, etc.
It is great to have a spirited debate, but to call people derogatory names simply because they don't share your viewpoint is the wrong path to take.
add-sub-mul-div
Anyone who isn't afraid of woke can see certain voters were demonstrably taken in by transparent demagoguery. There are consequences to actions and beliefs, criticism can happen, people are sometimes wrong and we can acknowledge that without pearl-clutching. "Low information" is specific and actionable, unlike "stupid". Sometimes one decision was better than the other and we can only progress by understanding that, despite any hurt feelings. Sorry, no participation trophies today!
AlexandrB
> Anyone who isn't afraid of woke can see certain voters were demonstrably taken in by transparent demagoguery.
How is this different than the decision-making process of many Democrat voters? Trying to make any rational arguments on "certain issues" gets you labelled as a fascist, racist, bigot or all of this (and more) at the same time. There's nothing rational about this kind of approach.
It seems to me that the left has become lazy and often assumes that something must be rational because they believe it.
honkycat
I think it is foolish to think that just because it was easy to tear something down, it will be easy to build it back up.
People are pissed off about the tanking economy and the brain-dead tariff approach, even though Trump said he was going to do this.
We know what tariffs do, it has been proven over and over again. What conclusion am I supposed to come to, after witnessing the predictable clown-show since January? We lost 5% today.
null
Dems just need to spin these tariffs as the largest tax increase in US history (which is basically correct).