Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Here is a X post from a Shay Boloor, a financial/investment podcaster, that is making the rounds:
MY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP The frustrating part is that I was on board for a reset. Truly. I’ve said it publicly. I’ve written about it in this very feed. I understood the need for a detox. For decades, the U.S. economy played the part of the rich guy at the table -- picking up the check for a global order that no longer worked in our favor. We hollowed out our industrial base. We enabled unfair trade imbalances under the illusion of diplomacy. We subsidized demand for cheap imports while outsourcing the hard questions about how our domestic workforce would adapt.
Eventually, that had to stop. It was unsustainable -- financially, politically, and morally. We couldn’t keep pretending that a consumption-led economy held together by zero-interest rates and global fragility was a long-term solution. I wanted a rebalancing. I welcomed the idea of a harder, smarter America-first policy that pushed for fair treatment, reciprocal agreements, and a real industrial strategy rooted in technological superiority, national security, and capital formation. That would’ve been leadership.
But that’s not what this is.
That you’ve rolled out isn’t detox -- it’s whiplash. This isn’t strategic decoupling. It’s scattershot retaliation dressed up as reform. There’s no roadmap. No operational playbook. No clear articulation of where this ends or what the metrics of success even are. It’s not an attempt to responsibly unwind America’s role as the global shock absorber -- it’s a brute-force attempt to disorder the existing system with no viable alternative in place.
You can’t replace a fragile supply chain with chaos and call it resilience. You can’t build American industry by torching the scaffolding that underpins capital flows, labor mobility, and global coordination -- especially when the U.S. itself no longer has the domestic capacity to meet its own industrial needs. You talk about bringing jobs home, but the U.S. doesn’t have the labor force, permitting structure, or wage flexibility to stand up full-scale manufacturing at speed. And now -- after years of deportation policies and underinvestment in vocational training -- you’ve made the labor gap even wider.
Capital isn’t going to rush to fill that void just because you raised tariffs. It’s going to wait. It’s going to sit on the sidelines and preserve optionality. Because right now, no CEO can confidently model a five-year capex plan. No board can greenlight supply chain onshoring when they don’t know whether a tariff rate will double next quarter based on your Twitter account or some arbitrary trade deficit formula.
That’s the issue. This wasn’t rolled out as part of a comprehensive American renewal strategy. It wasn’t coordinated with the Fed. It wasn’t communicated clearly to Treasury. It wasn’t backed by a labor reskilling program or any form of public-private manufacturing incentive beyond empty slogans. It was dropped like a bomb -- seemingly designed more to shock than to build.
And in the absence of credible structure, capital is retreating -- not realigning.
I was ready to endure the pain of a thoughtful, structured reset. Most long-term investors were. We’ve lived through tightening cycles. We understood that globalization, as it stood, had reached a breaking point. But this isn’t a correction of imbalances. This is a rupture without scaffolding.
What you’ve created isn’t reindustrialization. It’s an intentional sabotage of capital planning. No executive is going to build a factory with four-year political horizon risk, a floating tariff regime, and no labor certainty. No investor is going to fund expansion in a market where the basic cost of imports can change weekly based on what country has a current account surplus that week. The system you’ve launched isn’t designed for certainty. It’s designed for control.
And the irony is -- we’re not even punishing bad actors. We’re punishing everyone. Allies. Poor countries. Longstanding partners. Israel gets slapped with 17% tariffs while dismantling their own to support American imports. Vietnam gets hit with 46% because it’s become too productive. Lesotho, one of the poorest countries on Earth, faces a 50% tariff because it doesn’t buy enough U.S. goods -- as if that were a sign of unfairness rather than poverty. It’s incoherent. It’s cruel. And it undermines any claim to moral high ground.
You say this is about protecting American workers. But no worker is helped by policy so erratic that no employer wants to hire. No consumer is helped when import costs rise and domestic capacity doesn’t exist to replace them. No investor is helped when the cost of capital spikes in the face of weaponized uncertainty.
This is not a plan to make America stronger. It’s a gamble that markets and allies will blink first. It’s brinkmanship with no floor.
And the most maddening part? There was a path. A real one. A version of this policy that could’ve worked -- not in headlines or soundbites, but in practice. A path that applied pressure with purpose, that aligned economic force with long-term national interest, that sent a clear message to adversaries and partners alike without destabilizing global commerce or blindsiding capital allocators.
You could’ve gone after China -- hard -- and had the backing of nearly every serious investor and strategist on the Street. Not just because of trade deficits or currency suppression, but because China has been actively undermining our economy and our people. I would’ve supported a four-year plan to end all dependence on Chinese manufacturing unless they stopped stealing American IP (DeepSeek). No more games. Make it explicit: if they don’t comply, we’ll back Taiwanese independence and bring the entire global semiconductor economy with us. No ambiguity. No half-threats. As I see it, China is at war with us -- and our policy should reflect that.
With the EU, you could’ve played it clean. Match auto tariffs percent-for-percent. That’s fair. And then leave the rest alone -- especially goods and services. We run a huge surplus on services with the EU. It props up some of our biggest competitive advantages -- enterprise software, consulting, cloud, defense tech, streaming, media IP. Tariffing the EU outside of autos would be like shooting your own foot for balance. We’re not in a trade war with Europe. We're in a competition for global enterprise dominance -- and right now, the U.S. is winning.
That’s what real strength would’ve looked like. That’s what an America-first trade doctrine could’ve achieved. You’d be rebuilding the system from the inside out -- not just throwing bricks through the windows and calling it a redesign.
Investors would’ve backed it. CEOs would’ve planned around it. Global partners would’ve respected it -- even if they didn’t like it. And capital would’ve flowed toward American resilience instead of retreating from American unpredictability.
But instead of that, you went with chaos. And now, confidence is shattered. Not because the numbers are bad -- but because no one knows what the numbers mean anymore.
That’s the cost of burning down the rules without building new ones. So no, this is not the detox we needed. It’s not strategic decoupling. It’s not a path to renewal. It’s a slow, loud dismantling of the very foundation that has allowed American capital, innovation, and enterprise to dominate for decades. And it didn’t have to be this way.
But now we’re here. And the market is reacting accordingly -- not to the fundamentals, but to the sense that the future may no longer be modelable. That’s not a trade. That’s an exit.
I don’t want this post to be hyper-political. This isn’t about red or blue. It’s not about the 2024 election cycle. It’s not about ideology. It’s about strategy. It’s about execution.
It’s about understanding that when you're the United States -- when you sit at the helm of the global economic engine -- every policy you roll out reverberates through capital markets, supply chains, boardrooms, and governments. Words become signals. Signals become pricing. Pricing becomes pain -- or progress.
And I hope -- for the sake of the markets, for the sake of businesses trying to plan, and for the future we’re all investing into -- that it’s not too late to recalibrate. Because we don’t need more noise.
Excellent points. Not that Donnie Dimwit, Puppet of Putin, First Felon of the USA, and cosplaying 'president' would be able to read it ... let alone understand it.
I just saw a good interview on MSNBC -- The global investor said " the world is moving on and looking at how to do it without the US" This is going to cause long term problems for the US. FAFO at its finest.
I just saw a good interview on MSNBC -- The global investor said " the world is moving on and looking at how to do it without the US" This is going to cause long term problems for the US. FAFO at its finest.
As the Orange one said about Canadian wood, oil, electricity, etc... "We don't need them..."
So now Donnie is insulting people who are worried about their retirement accounts...
“The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
A far cry from FDR's reassuring fireside chats, eh?
Uh, yeah, I kinda thought that went without saying.
You would think, but about 40% of the population still likes to believe that he is some sort of financial negotiations wizard.......despite his bankruptcy history.
Looking past a track record with red flags in abundance, that history has been neatly swept under the rug.
At the end of the day, the Emperor has no clothes.
Good god. In a bankruptcy, it's irrelevant what citizens, customers, creditors and whoever else "believe"!
Do you REALLY think a large % of his minions would still "believe" he's a financial whiz if the US went belly up?
Ugh. I'm done with this part of the discussion. What I originally posted was an attempted tongue-in-cheek slap in the face. Somehow semantics got in the way.
Do you REALLY think a large % of his minions would still "believe" he's a financial whiz if the US went belly up?
His minions will believe this is all somehow Biden's fault, because that's the excuse the propaganda (aka Fox News) will direct them towards. Roughly 35% - 40% of the country will vote for him again no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.
Maybe if you take their Social Security away, the base erodes a bit more.
There is no common sense involved, no humility and the facts are alternative. It's the foundation for this entire "movement".
It's a cult of personality. And it's how we got here.
I generally agree with your assessment. But I think we may soon reach a tipping point where Republican politicians, important business leaders, and some Trump supporters will increasingly voice dissatisfaction with certain administration policies.
First, of course, they won't have the opportunity to "vote for him again no matter what" as president unless well, unless the unthinkable.
Next, regardless if NO MATTER WHAT is in CAPS or not...His base is clearly stoopid, but if any/all of you lose your job, your home, your retirement savings, the country went belly up and we're on the brink of nuclear war, a worthy % of the cultists will fold.
There are already, albeit weak, signs that some of the cardboard cut out Red Party legislators are starting to buckle. The 2-week recess couldn't come at a better time. Those a-holes are going to be getting earfuls in their districts.
And I'll conclude my participation on this by saying I'm sure few thought McCarthyism would die either.
Uncle Joe McCarthy was a bag full of assholes, true. But he was just a single Senator, not the Chief Executive. Yes, it's true, a lotta "geniuses" backed him up, for a long time.
It will take a lot of time for us to recover, eventually. But even after that, we will have lost any measure of prestige and outsized influence that we once had as a country. A good bit of that's already been lost via Joe's support of the Gaza genocide. Trade relations will have shifted. The USA will be, at best, among a 2nd-tier of nations.... And hopefully, the Demublicans will clean house and get their own shit together--- and not just wax triumphant, when the time comes. But this is politics, alas.... Don't get your hopes up.
Disclaimer: These are OPINIONS being expressed here so the is no right or wrong. That said... ___________________________
On your first point, McCarthy was used as an analogy of the dominance that one Red Party elected official had over the party. It's hard to argue that the analogy is NOT appropriate as McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the most powerful US Senators of all-time and his initiatives gripped the party and nation for years!
"...It's hard to argue that the analogy is NOT appropriate as McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the most powerful US Senators of all-time and his initiatives gripped the party and nation for years!"
Your analogy IS appropriate. I was adding an additional aspect for discussion. Jayzuz.
They always say a bully needs a punch in the face to stop being a bully. China ups the tariff war. Could China be giving the punch in the face the bully needs?
They always say a bully needs a punch in the face to stop being a bully. China ups the tariff war. Could China be giving the punch in the face the bully needs?
He'll never admit anything or back down; he'll create a pretext (like everything else) to say he "won." Because it's all about HIM, anyhow.
Tis true that it's all about him. His vanity - appearing "strong", never backing down. Even when you are clearly wrong, you must then double-down on the falsehood.
This just in: ‘BE COOL! ... THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY’
And don't forget: "ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!"
OK. OK. Granted, he was a wee bit off about the whole disinfectant cure for COVID thingie, but I trust he's got us covered on this one, being the superb bizness man and all, right?
Comments
MY OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP The frustrating part is that I was on board for a reset. Truly. I’ve said it publicly. I’ve written about it in this very feed. I understood the need for a detox. For decades, the U.S. economy played the part of the rich guy at the table -- picking up the check for a global order that no longer worked in our favor. We hollowed out our industrial base. We enabled unfair trade imbalances under the illusion of diplomacy. We subsidized demand for cheap imports while outsourcing the hard questions about how our domestic workforce would adapt.
Eventually, that had to stop. It was unsustainable -- financially, politically, and morally. We couldn’t keep pretending that a consumption-led economy held together by zero-interest rates and global fragility was a long-term solution. I wanted a rebalancing. I welcomed the idea of a harder, smarter America-first policy that pushed for fair treatment, reciprocal agreements, and a real industrial strategy rooted in technological superiority, national security, and capital formation. That would’ve been leadership.
But that’s not what this is.
That you’ve rolled out isn’t detox -- it’s whiplash. This isn’t strategic decoupling. It’s scattershot retaliation dressed up as reform. There’s no roadmap. No operational playbook. No clear articulation of where this ends or what the metrics of success even are. It’s not an attempt to responsibly unwind America’s role as the global shock absorber -- it’s a brute-force attempt to disorder the existing system with no viable alternative in place.
You can’t replace a fragile supply chain with chaos and call it resilience. You can’t build American industry by torching the scaffolding that underpins capital flows, labor mobility, and global coordination -- especially when the U.S. itself no longer has the domestic capacity to meet its own industrial needs. You talk about bringing jobs home, but the U.S. doesn’t have the labor force, permitting structure, or wage flexibility to stand up full-scale manufacturing at speed. And now -- after years of deportation policies and underinvestment in vocational training -- you’ve made the labor gap even wider.
Capital isn’t going to rush to fill that void just because you raised tariffs. It’s going to wait. It’s going to sit on the sidelines and preserve optionality. Because right now, no CEO can confidently model a five-year capex plan. No board can greenlight supply chain onshoring when they don’t know whether a tariff rate will double next quarter based on your Twitter account or some arbitrary trade deficit formula.
That’s the issue. This wasn’t rolled out as part of a comprehensive American renewal strategy. It wasn’t coordinated with the Fed. It wasn’t communicated clearly to Treasury. It wasn’t backed by a labor reskilling program or any form of public-private manufacturing incentive beyond empty slogans. It was dropped like a bomb -- seemingly designed more to shock than to build.
And in the absence of credible structure, capital is retreating -- not realigning.
I was ready to endure the pain of a thoughtful, structured reset. Most long-term investors were. We’ve lived through tightening cycles. We understood that globalization, as it stood, had reached a breaking point. But this isn’t a correction of imbalances. This is a rupture without scaffolding.
What you’ve created isn’t reindustrialization. It’s an intentional sabotage of capital planning. No executive is going to build a factory with four-year political horizon risk, a floating tariff regime, and no labor certainty. No investor is going to fund expansion in a market where the basic cost of imports can change weekly based on what country has a current account surplus that week. The system you’ve launched isn’t designed for certainty. It’s designed for control.
And the irony is -- we’re not even punishing bad actors. We’re punishing everyone. Allies. Poor countries. Longstanding partners. Israel gets slapped with 17% tariffs while dismantling their own to support American imports. Vietnam gets hit with 46% because it’s become too productive. Lesotho, one of the poorest countries on Earth, faces a 50% tariff because it doesn’t buy enough U.S. goods -- as if that were a sign of unfairness rather than poverty. It’s incoherent. It’s cruel. And it undermines any claim to moral high ground.
You say this is about protecting American workers. But no worker is helped by policy so erratic that no employer wants to hire. No consumer is helped when import costs rise and domestic capacity doesn’t exist to replace them. No investor is helped when the cost of capital spikes in the face of weaponized uncertainty.
This is not a plan to make America stronger. It’s a gamble that markets and allies will blink first. It’s brinkmanship with no floor.
And the most maddening part? There was a path. A real one. A version of this policy that could’ve worked -- not in headlines or soundbites, but in practice. A path that applied pressure with purpose, that aligned economic force with long-term national interest, that sent a clear message to adversaries and partners alike without destabilizing global commerce or blindsiding capital allocators.
You could’ve gone after China -- hard -- and had the backing of nearly every serious investor and strategist on the Street. Not just because of trade deficits or currency suppression, but because China has been actively undermining our economy and our people. I would’ve supported a four-year plan to end all dependence on Chinese manufacturing unless they stopped stealing American IP (DeepSeek). No more games. Make it explicit: if they don’t comply, we’ll back Taiwanese independence and bring the entire global semiconductor economy with us. No ambiguity. No half-threats. As I see it, China is at war with us -- and our policy should reflect that.
With the EU, you could’ve played it clean. Match auto tariffs percent-for-percent. That’s fair. And then leave the rest alone -- especially goods and services. We run a huge surplus on services with the EU. It props up some of our biggest competitive advantages -- enterprise software, consulting, cloud, defense tech, streaming, media IP. Tariffing the EU outside of autos would be like shooting your own foot for balance. We’re not in a trade war with Europe. We're in a competition for global enterprise dominance -- and right now, the U.S. is winning.
That’s what real strength would’ve looked like. That’s what an America-first trade doctrine could’ve achieved. You’d be rebuilding the system from the inside out -- not just throwing bricks through the windows and calling it a redesign.
Investors would’ve backed it. CEOs would’ve planned around it. Global partners would’ve respected it -- even if they didn’t like it. And capital would’ve flowed toward American resilience instead of retreating from American unpredictability.
But instead of that, you went with chaos. And now, confidence is shattered. Not because the numbers are bad -- but because no one knows what the numbers mean anymore.
That’s the cost of burning down the rules without building new ones. So no, this is not the detox we needed. It’s not strategic decoupling. It’s not a path to renewal. It’s a slow, loud dismantling of the very foundation that has allowed American capital, innovation, and enterprise to dominate for decades. And it didn’t have to be this way.
But now we’re here. And the market is reacting accordingly -- not to the fundamentals, but to the sense that the future may no longer be modelable. That’s not a trade. That’s an exit.
I don’t want this post to be hyper-political. This isn’t about red or blue. It’s not about the 2024 election cycle. It’s not about ideology. It’s about strategy. It’s about execution.
It’s about understanding that when you're the United States -- when you sit at the helm of the global economic engine -- every policy you roll out reverberates through capital markets, supply chains, boardrooms, and governments. Words become signals. Signals become pricing. Pricing becomes pain -- or progress.
And I hope -- for the sake of the markets, for the sake of businesses trying to plan, and for the future we’re all investing into -- that it’s not too late to recalibrate. Because we don’t need more noise.
We need a plan.
Excellent points. Not that Donnie Dimwit, Puppet of Putin, First Felon of the USA, and cosplaying 'president' would be able to read it ... let alone understand it.
This will not end well for us.
“The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
A far cry from FDR's reassuring fireside chats, eh?
Well, at least he has a lot of personal experience with bankruptcies.
Looking past a track record with red flags in abundance, that history has been neatly swept under the rug.
At the end of the day, the Emperor has no clothes.
Do you REALLY think a large % of his minions would still "believe" he's a financial whiz if the US went belly up?
Ugh. I'm done with this part of the discussion. What I originally posted was an attempted tongue-in-cheek slap in the face. Somehow semantics got in the way.
His minions will believe this is all somehow Biden's fault, because that's the excuse the propaganda (aka Fox News) will direct them towards. Roughly 35% - 40% of the country will vote for him again no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.
Maybe if you take their Social Security away, the base erodes a bit more.
There is no common sense involved, no humility and the facts are alternative. It's the foundation for this entire "movement".
It's a cult of personality. And it's how we got here.
But I think we may soon reach a tipping point where Republican politicians, important business leaders,
and some Trump supporters will increasingly voice dissatisfaction with certain administration policies.
First, of course, they won't have the opportunity to "vote for him again no matter what" as president unless well, unless the unthinkable.
Next, regardless if NO MATTER WHAT is in CAPS or not...His base is clearly stoopid, but if any/all of you lose your job, your home, your retirement savings, the country went belly up and we're on the brink of nuclear war, a worthy % of the cultists will fold.
There are already, albeit weak, signs that some of the cardboard cut out Red Party legislators are starting to buckle. The 2-week recess couldn't come at a better time. Those a-holes are going to be getting earfuls in their districts.
And I'll conclude my participation on this by saying I'm sure few thought McCarthyism would die either.
It will take a lot of time for us to recover, eventually. But even after that, we will have lost any measure of prestige and outsized influence that we once had as a country. A good bit of that's already been lost via Joe's support of the Gaza genocide. Trade relations will have shifted. The USA will be, at best, among a 2nd-tier of nations.... And hopefully, the Demublicans will clean house and get their own shit together--- and not just wax triumphant, when the time comes. But this is politics, alas.... Don't get your hopes up.
That said...
___________________________
On your first point, McCarthy was used as an analogy of the dominance that one Red Party elected official had over the party. It's hard to argue that the analogy is NOT appropriate as McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the most powerful US Senators of all-time and his initiatives gripped the party and nation for years!
But it's the internet so...
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/18/1046648461/decades-before-trumps-election-lies-mccarthys-anti-communist-fever-gripped-the-g
___________________________
On your 2nd point, agreed that it will take time to recover. Disagree that we will at best only recover to be a 2nd tier nation.
There are a LOT of country tier designations, everything from rugby to advertising to economics.
If you are talking about the economic tiers, C'mon Man!
https://evadav.com/blog/tier-1-2-3-countries-list#:~:text=Tier 2: Developing or Emerging Economies&text=Tier 2 countries, such as,landscapes and growing purchasing powers.
____________________________
And on a personal note, I feel bad for anyone who has lost hope in the country, especially retirees/senior citizens like me and the missus.
JD Vance Freaks Out After Tariffs Hike Price of Eyeliner
https://apnews.com/article/musk-trump-tesla-stock-lutnick-commerce-secretary-ethics-5a89c2f4a68a9470692630b5c56cffd6#:~:text=A week after President Donald,“Buy Tesla.”
Good NYT article.
Thanks for sharing!
Your analogy IS appropriate. I was adding an additional aspect for discussion. Jayzuz.
That act has gotten old. Real old.
‘BE COOL! ... THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY’
And don't forget:
"ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!"
OK. OK. Granted, he was a wee bit off about the whole disinfectant cure for COVID thingie, but I trust he's got us covered on this one, being the superb bizness man and all, right?