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This is a screed posted on Facebook by an American friend of a friend. I don't understand all the terminology but Trump's actions are obviously causing distress across the board on the US:
“Tough times these. Unlike most younger people I retired 17 years ago from a company that had a pension plan; at least they did have a pension plan. They just announced that they have sold the plan and its assets & obligations to two insurance companies. Now It's up to the insurance companies to maintain the payment of pensions to retirees (that's me!). When the company operated the pension plan we retirees were protected by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The PBGC is a US government agency established to protect the pensions of participants and beneficiaries in private sector defined benefit (DB) plans, ensuring that retirees receive their promised benefits even if the plan fails. But now that the company has divested themselves of their plan obligations the PBGC no longer guarantees those payments. Tough tittie retirees; suck it up. Trump and Musk and DOGE will probably kill the PBGC anyhow if they haven't done it already.
Well I also had a 401-k which I rolled over into an IRA. Last week wasn't kind to my IRA. As some of the signs protestors were carrying last week said my 401-k is now more like a 201-k! And as the shock of Trump's Tariff shenanigans sink in I don't think next week is gonna be any better. Not much comfort to be found there.
But there's always Social Security isn't there? Except Elon Musk seems to have a hard-on for Social Security as DOGE has laid off 7,000 - 10,000 social security employees and closed 47-48 Social Security offices. Plus his "Big Balls" crew has been monkeying with the legacy software platform that SS runs on causing their web site to crash multiple times last week. The software is written in COBOL a computer language so ancient that I took a class in COBOL programming back in the 60's. And all the folks who know COBOL are now gone having been fired or pushed out by the DOGE kids. One knowledgeable economist has said that so much damage has been done to the SS system that it may crash sometime in the next 90 days and may no longer be able to send out checks to 73,000,000 Americans. It appears that this is what Trump wants so that he and his Oligarchs can "privatize" (a code word for steal) the $2.8 trillion in the SS Trust fund. Never let a good crisis go to waste is his motto.
So like a good citizen I did what I was told - I built my retirement on a 3-legged stool concept of pension, savings, and social security/medicare. But whoever came up with that plan never envisioned a remorseless predatory beast like Trump who just may wreck all three.”
It's possible that Trump is part of the great reset and he has fooled everybody.
Worth waiting a day or two before any grand predictions but I don't think the stock markets can sustain more than another couple of days before something has to happen to boost them. Today seems like a third day of losses.
That said, I don't advocate long term policy decisions being retracted after three days of stock market volatility, but if it carries on it starts to be an extremely serious issue in itself as opposed to being a portend of something further down the line.
We could actually be at the start of one of a pivotal week in the global economy. If the stock markets stabilize, countries scramble to reduce tariffs and a few more announcements of on-shoring happen it could go one way. If they continue to fall, companies stay silent or heavily criticize it and other countries unite against them then it could easily go the other.
There is a story going around that the architect of Trump's tariff policies is a guy called Peter Navarro. (Navarro is definitely part of Trump's inner circle.) This Navarro guy wrote some obscure whackjob books about how the US is getting ripped off ("Death by China" for example). Note for everyone: don't bother reading them they are full of twisted tripe. In his cannon he refers to his mentor and inspiration quite a lot to justify his thinking, referring to the works of the great Ron Varro repeatedly. Nobody can find any reference to this person in the Economic profession. The reason why? "Ron Varro" is just an anagram of "Navarro". You literally couldn't make it up ...
Well, that's certainly my take on it, but it's not something we're all universally agreed on. And just as there are people in this world who will maintain Brexit was a good idea, so will there be MAGA folk who will keep on insisting this trade war was a good idea, irrespective of what actually happens as a result of it.
Trump just played economic chicken with the most powerful countries in the world and they all blinked.
CCMB financial experts know better 🤣
Good evening chaps. 🤣
Firstly, quit the personal insults. I have no qualms about reporting you for them. There's enough creeps on the internet and we don't need it. I said the same to Sludge who has the same penchant for personal abuse as you do, so quit it.
Secondly, if you can respond maturely, what do you disagree with?
Waiting a few days to form a more rounded opinion?
Not basing long term economic decisions on a couple of days stock market performance?
Continued losses becoming more serious by the day?
This being a pivotal week in the global economy?
A scenario where stock markets stabilize, countries seek to reduce tariffs and companies on-shore?
Or an alternative scenario where those things don't happen?
What is stupid about any of that?
None of them are unreasonable comments.