Back on April 4, 2024, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 38,596.98; a year later, today, it closed at 38,314.86.
In between, the Dow had hit a 52-week high, in early December, of 45,073.63, a gain of 16.8 percent, which was nice.
It’s all gone, all of it – the bulk of the staggering losses coming in the past two days, following the mystifying tariffs rolled out by failed businessman-turned-economics guru Donald Trump.
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It’s not just the Dow – the NASDAQ is lower today than it was on April 4, 2024, and has lost 29.6 percent of its value from its 52-week high; and then there’s the S&P 500, also down from where it was a year ago today, and the S&P has lost 21.2 percent of its value from its 52-week peak.
We could give Trump a tiny bit of leeway for the economy going into the tank back in 2020 because of COVID, even if his dummkopf actions at the outset of the pandemic made the economic calamity that much more painful.
Even so, that was something external causing the calamity; this tariff-driven cliff dive is 100 percent self-inflicted.
“Well, we’re into Day 3 of that liberation effort. How is that feeling for everybody? Stock markets crashing, the world economy reeling, America pissing off all our friends,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said on Friday.
Our friends, and our foes – China is hitting back, hard, matching the Trump tariffs dollar-for-dollar, and upping the ante with export controls on rare earth metals used in high-tech products, the suspension of export licenses for 16 U.S. firms and the addition of 11 companies to an “unreliable entities list.”
That ought to work out well for us.
ICYMI
Trump had already alienated border allies Canada and Mexico, and now has the EU working through its own political response.
Notably, Russia was left free and clear from the Trump tariffs list.
Hmmm.
Wonder why that was.
“The tariffs are not designed to punish adversaries, since we are hurting allies and treating them worse than adversaries in many ways. The tariffs are not designed to lower trade barriers, since nations with no trade barriers are still getting socked. The tariffs are not designed to counter trade deficits, since nations where we have trade surpluses are getting socked. So, why do them at all? Why punish Americans with a national sales tax, which all the economists say is the largest peacetime tax ever imposed in U.S. history?” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a speech on the Senate floor on Friday.
Answering his own question:
“It’s about raising money to fund a tax cut for the rich,” Kaine said. “These tariffs will raise $6 trillion over the course of the next 10 years, about $600 billion a year all taken out of the pockets of everyday Americans who are paying more for groceries, who are paying more for building supplies when they do a home renovation, farmers who are paying more for fertilizer. The $6 trillion that these tariffs will raise all come out of the pocketbooks of Americans who are working hard and who don’t want to pay more taxes.”
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Trump, indeed, is convinced that tariffs are taxes on foreign countries, when they are decidedly not that – foreign-based companies whose products are subject to tariffs simply pass the additional cost of a higher tariff on the sticker price, which then gets passed on to you and me, who end up paying it.
So, if you pay attention to what the Trumper says, when he talks about tariffs bringing in billions of dollars into the federal government’s coffers, those are your dollars, which he is taking from you to be able to balance out the billions of dollars he wants to give in the form of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, so that they can have more.
Dude is, basically, robbing the working class and middle class to give more to the rich, Robin Hood in reverse.
The frustrating thing about all of this is, Congress could undo the damage in a couple of hours if it wanted to.
“To my Republican friends who claim they want to see America stay strong, how long are you going to stay silent while our economy melts down, our allies turn to China for new economic deals?” Warner said on Friday.
The short answer: for a while longer, at least.
For instance, I’ve only been able to find one public comment on the economic calamity of the past couple of days from our feckless MAGA congressman, Ben Cline.
Check that: I’m now being told the comment wasn’t actually about the economic calamity.
“March brought 228,000 new jobs, making it one of the strongest months we’ve seen in two years,” Cline tweeted on Friday, in the form of the Kevin Bacon character in “Animal House” shouting “Remain calm, all is well, all is well!” during that film’s chaotic closing scenes.
“Wages are up, the private sector is growing, and it’s clear the pro-growth, pro-worker policies put in place under President Trump are still delivering results,” Cline tweeted.
You can’t fix stupid.
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Chris Graham
