The bells of recession are sounding up and down Wall Street today as yields on the 10-year Treasury note briefly dipped below two-year yields for the first time since 2007, a warning sign that of recession, according to the Wall Street Journal.
President Trump isn't paying attention to those warning chimes.
He spent a good chunk of today’s Twitter time defending his tariffs on China and promoting his rally tomorrow in Manchester, NH. Free tickets are available.
Trump tweeted that the $300B in tariffs that he imposed on China hasn’t hurt the economy and “really hasn’t led to any kind of serious rise in prices at the consumer level.”
That’s bunk.
The tweet contradicts Trump’s move yesterday to delay new tariffs on China-made toys, cellphones and laptop computers until after the start of the Christmas season.
Apparently not eager to play the role of Scrooge, Trump told reporters he delayed those tariffs “just in case they might have an impact on people.”
Say what? That admission must be an eye-opener to diehard MAGA fans who swallowed his line that American consumers aren’t picking up the tab for his tariffs.
That’s unless they recently purchased a washing machine.
The WSJ reported that Trump’s tariffs cost US washing machine buyers about $1.5B as prices rose 12 percent.
And while Trump tweeted today that the US has taken in “$Billions” from tariffs, the WSJ reported the washing machine tariffs generated a modest $82.2M in new government revenue from February 2018 to January 2019. Those figures just don’t add up to a win for the USA.
Trump’s tariff strategy was a loser right from the beginning. But his on-again-off-again approach to applying the duties only exacerbates the situation.
“It’s a dangerous game,” Dan Ivascyn, chief investment officer at bond investment firm PIMCO, told the Financial Times. “We think some economic damage is dealt every day that this uncertainty lingers.”
David Frum, speechwriter for president Bush II and now an ardent anti-Trumper, summed things up quite nicely today.
He tweeted: "Trump inherited a thriving real estate company from his father and bankrupted it. He inherited a strong economy from Obama and steered it straight to severe recession."
Let’s hope the Trump Recession is mercifully short.

The US has reached a dark and sad place when nobody believes a word that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth... Communicators fear AI will rob PR of its identity... AI researchers tell PR pros to "chill" since artificial intelligence may soon wipe us all out.
Thin-skinned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent banned America's top-tier financial media from covering the G20 financial summit staged on our home field... GOP bans CBC/Radio Canada from covering Donald Trump's super-rally set for Dallas next week... The US is poised to join Lebanon, Peru, Gabon and Nigeria as most perceived corrupt countries.
Keurig Dr Pepper isn’t exactly lighting up the lemon-lime soda category with the August reformulation of 7UP... Coca-Cola successfully spins 'new Coke' marketing blunder into a strategic masterstroke... White House press shop praises Army Secretary Dan Driscoll as he resigns due to tensions with DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth... It's much easier for the Pentagon to pay influencers rather than trying to figure way out of Iran mess.
Fired Stars and Stripes journalists fire back at Pentagon with suit charging censorship and First Amendment violations... H/Advisors reports 44 percent of $1B or more deals were leaked to the press... What's Trump going to do with Ontario (CA), Toronto (OH), Montreal (WI), New Brunswick (NJ) and Halifax (VA)?
Donald Trump's crazy idea to rename Lake Ontario destroys the H-O-M-E-S acronym for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. S-H-A-M-E doesn't do justice to the lakes... Team Trump's cheap shots at Canada's military irritates former US brass... Trump may love French-Canadians but that love is not reciprocal... Stanley Druckenmiller delivers big plug for AI... Polaroid cashes in on anti-data center sentiment. (Updated)



