Alright fine Tariffs are funny again.
The market got a little reprieve yesterday when it was announced that the whole tariff situation was going to be dialed back a bit. You know... real "Art of the Deal" type stuff. We got a little rally and BTC is right back where it should be. Of course one of the biggest tariffs that actually matters, China, was increased to an absurd 125% because they're being "disrespectful"; which I assume is a fun little way to say they aren't being our little bitch like everyone else. Apparently the Chinese tariff on US now sits at 84%.
My first question upon hearing this news (besides lol?) is what does the USA even export to China? Why would it even matter to us as a country if someone levies a tax... on their own people... on our exports? Who cares? Can it really be as childish and foolish as, "Oh you tax me I tax you back; tax tax tax!" I highly doubt it. Something very weird is going on here.
These are the current vibes I am getting:
Haha look at these stupid peasants running around thinking we are fighting each other when we are really just taxing them into absolute poverty.
It really is a masterclass in doublespeak manipulation to watch all these Trump voters act like a ludicrous tax on the American people is somehow a genius move. And these are Republicans we are talking about. You know.... the party that hates taxes and pretends to want smaller government and free markets with less regulation. Does that mean democrats get to act like they want smaller government and less taxes now? lol. Full Circle. Full Stop.
If anything I would have expected tariffs to be a democrat thing. The narrative makes way more sense: stop letting these corporations move overseas and exploit slave labor in other countries that have lax labor laws. A 125% tariff on t-shirts from Indonesia would totally make sense within this context... not a blanket 125% against a world power in which we get legit all of our stuff from.
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Just yesterday I was having a conversation about this topic in person and I instantly concluded that Trump and his cronies are obviously insider trading. It's so incredibly blatant at this point. He has his hands on all these economic levers of power and is clearly creating a massive poop and scoop. While everyone is worried this is going to lead to an 18 month bear market... it's not. It's going to last as long as he wants it to last, which is very obviously short term: looking and the numbers and flip flopping we are seeing.
So imagine my glee today when I hear that he's literally "tweeting" on Truth Social that "this is a good time to buy" and then not 15 minutes later he announces that plan to chill out of the tariffs a bit... which inevitably sends the markets higher. This is insider trading on the highest level, but good luck proving it. Clearly these people know what they are doing and they probably won't even get caught... or if they do get caught nothing will happen. Remember: it's crime season.
Of course democrats and everyone with Trump Derangement Syndrome is like OMG HE'S INSIDER TRADING LOCK HIM UP. Like, bitch... every politician is insider trading. They have all done it at least once and some of them, like Nancy Pelosi, are literally career insider traders; that is how they make 99% of their money. So it's just hilarious to me that these politicians are like we got to get a probe into this. God forbid that taskforce take a look at their own activities.
Outsider Trading!
And some of them are like well okay we can't prove that he insider traded but this is OUTSIDER TRADING BRUV! He told people to buy and then he pulled a lever to make number go up. Again, outsider trading is not a thing. This is just a make-believe term for people who don't like the person they are talking about. If you publicly tell people to make a move because you have insider information... that's not illegal... it's basically just a pre-announcement to the event. Stop grasping at straws it's embarrassing.
I'm very glad it's working out this way.
The volatility of this policy speaks to how absolutely temporary it is. If these tariffs were 10% or even 20% I'd be like damn we can probably do this for a while before things break. But no he levies a 125% on our biggest trading partner. That's not sustainable. It's also nonsensical because the narrative behind tariffs is that it's going to bring jobs to the USA and force us to get that product from other sources (preferably within our borders). Except there isn't another place to get a lot of those products and we do not have the infrastructure or even the want to build these products ourselves. We are a nation of imports and our entire economy heavily revolves around that fact. It would take a decade or more to change that, assuming we even wanted to, which we do not.
There will be no pivot, tariffs be damned.
This should be even more obvious considering how badly these tariffs are being implemented. It's such a bad idea in the first place... and it's being forced so aggressively that no one is going to want to do tariffs for another 30 years when this inevitably blows up in everyone's face. But again something tells me that was the plan to begin with.
How Trump does business
When a billionaire tells you something like, "Maybe we should pay down this unsustainable debt," they are lying. That is a bold faced lie. Billionaires ARE the debt. Billionaires are the money printer. They take out as much debt on purpose at a low interest rate because that money gets devalued faster than the interest rate. The rest of us plebs have to get 30% APR credit cards so there's no way to leverage that debt into a better deal. Meanwhile Microstrategy can borrow $10B at 0% and yeet it all into Bitcoin with almost zero risk of default. This is how they all operate, including the government itself.
People who don't like Trump (or don't understand his moves) like to act like he's a terrible businessman because all his companies go bankrupt. In reality this is ironically one of the easiest ways to make money.
- Load up an LLC with as much debt as possible.
- Funnel that money into your own pocket (legally or not).
- Declare bankruptcy and never pay back the debt.
- Rinse and repeat.
- Printer go brrr.
So when you hear a politician and a billionaire telling you they are going to balance the budget and set things right... they are lying, and if your response to that is, "This is why I hate Trump," then you must be blinded to the fact that this is how they ALL operate. There literally is no better option. This is what we get. Deal with it and understand the situation we are in.
Conclusion
Trump insiders are 1000% insider trading using the tariff play. We did not need him to announce, "This is a good time to buy," in order to understand that this was happening. Anyone who only noticed this was a thing because he said it on social media does not have a pulse on the situation. They all do it and will continue to do it because there are no consequences.
I know how Trump operates and I know how billionaires operate. Trump is not a hardass ready to get down and dirty while balancing a budget and creating net neutral sustainable economy in government. That is a fantasy being peddled to anyone who will listen.
The truth is plain and simple: Billionaires and politicians want easy money. They want printer go brrr because they are always the closest ones to the spigot. The only reason to deviate from that path is to do a controlled demolition first and scoop the bottom before pumping it to the moon. That's what we are seeing here with the tariffs and it's never been more obvious than right now.