Painful 2 days (April 3/4, 2025)

[ua_guy]

D'Oh! There goes my chance to sell off my remaining equities.

This just in: The economic situation is still a soup sandwich.

Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as tariff-pause euphoria gets a reality check

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-slide-as-tariff-pause-euphoria-gets-a-reality-check-133050672.html

[Randomsaver]

Yup just ride it out. I won't be retiring until end-2028 so maybe this is a great thing happening as I'm able to buy cheaper each paycheck. Loving the discounts.

Current loss today is $90K from the high.

[Jluke]

I bought a whopping 0.5 shares more on Monday through my auto payroll 401k contribution. Versus the contribution 2 weeks ago.

for perspective

[disneysteve]

I'm starting to understand things:
Tariffs are bad, now pausing Tariffs is bad.

I never said tariffs were bad. In fact, I've said a few times in recent discussions that tariffs are a useful economic tool. The problem is they aren't being employed as an economic tool currently.

And I certainly don't think pausing tariffs is bad. I think eliminating them entirely would be even better. The biggest problem right now is uncertainty brought on by making policy willy nilly based on nothing but personal feelings rather than facts and data and expert opinions. Issuing rules one day and changing them two days later is wreaking havoc on the world economy.

[Atretes1]

I disagree, 100%. Circumstance is enormous. The impact of systemic biases against people and the power of nepotism is truly staggering. About insurance, I can say health care is a human right and no one should go bankrupt from becoming sick.

Systemic biases? I call BS nothing is stopping anyone from accomplishing anything today. And if you say otherwise Then is your fault for looking down on someone and saying they can't do that.

I started with nothing. I don't have education. I don't have an inheritance. If I can do it anyone can.

[Atretes1]

I agree 100%, but there are people in this forum who feel otherwise. We've had this conversation repeatedly. Don't waste your breath.

Wasting your breath on what? Its a free world. The world is what you make of it. If you want to be president you can run for it, if you want to work at MC Donald's you can, if you want to be homeless you can, if you want to save your whole life and become a millionaire you can, if you want to spend your money your whole life and never save you can. if you want to buy a house you can. If you have the skillset and want to be a professional athlete, you can. If you want to open a new business, you can. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing anything in 2025.

What am I missing?

[disneysteve]

Social issues have been discussed in plenty of other threads here, as I said. We don't need to do it again in this thread. That's what "don't waste your breath" means. For either side of the debate. It's not the topic at hand.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I wish we would cut the government spending. But how about starting with handouts to companies?

[ua_guy]

I wish we would cut the government spending. But how about starting with handouts to companies?

That seems like such a logical place to start. Or perhaps the defense budget, even if not one line item is struck, push the suppliers for better contracts and open it up to competition. I still can't reconcile how billions are given to Musk for his various companies and then is handed an active role in government with access to contracts and tax filing data for his competitors. It seems like a really huge financial conflict of interest, and not in the best interest of saving the taxpayer any money.

The topic of this thread was the huge market drop going into active taxes on imports. I wonder if future planned recessions of tariffs are intended to be used as a way to game the market to generate additional revenue for the government and/or employees of the government? I'm so bewildered by the events of the last week.

[Randomsaver]

I bought a whopping 0.5 shares more on Monday through my auto payroll 401k contribution. Versus the contribution 2 weeks ago.

for perspective

Congrats! That's 0.5 as in decimal or percent?

[Randomsaver]

I wish we would cut the government spending. But how about starting with handouts to companies?

I thinkt tha's coming too. The first ones that were cut were handouts to countries via abolishment of USAID. So for example,when Myanmar had that earthquaker, there was nothing right away for US to hand out to. Eventually we handed them money but not like in the past where US is like first to respond with money via USAID's satelite offices around the globe. What we save here is the admin expenses to keep those offices (salary, rent, maintenance, insurance, etc - it's a second US embassy office that is unnecessary). Not really needed as we can just wire money now from US.

[Jluke]

Congrats! That's 0.5 as in decimal or percent?

Instead of say 3 shares I was able to buy 3.5 shares. Not very exciting in my book

[Randomsaver]

The topic of this thread was the huge market drop going into active taxes on imports. I wonder if future planned recessions of tariffs are intended to be used as a way to game the market to generate additional revenue for the government and/or employees of the government? I'm so bewildered by the events of the last week.

Let's see if it works. It's not been done for so long. The goal is to level the playing field for encouraging more local production of goods now once imported items are expensive. And that's just the first stage. It's an excellent thing if it happens as it will employ many Americans and kickstart industrialization anew. The second stage is convincing the market to buy US-made products. This is another key step to make the industrialization that was started be sustainable. this means more buyers, more volume, lower price. This will also in effect allow for tariffs to be set lower to allow for same pricing. The third stage is the end-game -- globalizatio -- reach out to new markets worldwide.

[Randomsaver]

Instead of say 3 shares I was able to buy 3.5 shares. Not very exciting in my book

I see. Hopefully, this lasts many years. .5 / 3.5 is 15% increase. That is exciting to me if you ask me.

[ua_guy]

Let's see if it works. It's not been done for so long. The goal is to level the playing field for encouraging more local production of goods now once imported items are expensive. And that's just the first stage. It's an excellent thing if it happens as it will employ many Americans and kickstart industrialization anew. The second stage is convincing the market to buy US-made products. This is another key step to make the industrialization that was started be sustainable. this means more buyers, more volume, lower price. This will also in effect allow for tariffs to be set lower to allow for same pricing. The third stage is the end-game -- globalizatio -- reach out to new markets worldwide.

People are fixated on this idea of industrialization again, and our country has already been there and done that. Our economy needs to be focused on next-level energy production, AI, healthcare, defense, technology, and knowledge/services export. What's been done is an epic failure already, but I guess with our failing and dismantled education system, we'll have a lot of people we can stick in factories to work for us for cheap. I can't wait for the US to be the next Vietnam again.