@Solvetheriddle Bill Gates is forecasting a 2 day working week. With a revolution of robots and AI most of the current workforce won’t be required. If that’s the case I’ll come out of retirement and go back to work! Sounds easier! :D

count me in as well. i think a big part of the populace will end up digging holes or painting rocks etc. or get paid to stay away.

If any of the previous technological leaps forward are anything to go by we'll find work to fill the void. There is a case to be made we should have all been on two days a week since the invention of the steam engine.

But governmental departments won’t employ robots…those displaced by AI can always be NDIS/Pensioner walkers and shoppers. My only doubt is that computers promised this 50 years ago. It didn’t happen. Weekly wages in my business used to take 2 full days…at the end just 2 hours…I have no idea what happened to that apparent time saving apart from the need to train and retrain staff on computers and computer upgrades. There was a time when dad got home at 5pm to play with the kids and help mum (who never worked) with the meal. No computers and no AI.

What we know about Trump's tariff pause

[CBS News, Apr 10, 2025]

@Solvetheriddle , so true.

But I wonder if this temporary climbdown reflects that Trump was genuinely surprised by the market and global reaction and wants to avoid a situation where his domestic allies turn against him? (Musk being a canary in the coal mine.)

So, we have 90 days where his team are going to have to extract enough concessions from partners so that he can say he is achieving his goals.

There will be a lot of noise, but in terms of materiality, the countries/blocs I’m focused on are EU, China, Canada, Mexico, and Japan.

I anticipate the following weeks and months will have daily TV moments where immaterial items are trumpeted as evidence that his strategy is working.

But in the eyes of the big 5 mentioned, has Trump just blinked? And how do they best behave so that in 90-days there isn’t another destructive spiral?

Some are talking about a major step from here in US-China decoupling. Are Trump’s and Xi’s position too entrenched? Last night Trump seemed to hold the door ajar, but the Chinese messaging seems pretty uncompromising. (“… to the end.”)

From Trumps perspective, the time buys him an opportunity to better understand where his internal stakeholders are.

And what about the Fed? On what basis can JP take any decision.

This really is turning out to be the most riveting reality TV show ever! It’s not a mini-series. There are several more episodes to run.

We all knew this was coming, but still - what a reaction.

For now anyway, US markets seem to have bottomed near the last bull market cycle high struck in Jan 2022 (around 4850). That may be where the proverbial Drumpf “put” was struck.

But it’s hard to call with the Mad King occupying the throne.

Yeah, what you say above is all true. I suspect the 10Y bond route forced his hand. Where does it all go? We just don't know. As you say, there is some sense inside the camp that will probably temper DT's actions. Pursuing anti-dumping, illegally traded goods etc all make sense, the broad tariffs, crazy balanced trade with everyone, i suspect gets discarded. my feeling is it will slowly whittle down to China as the enemy. As an egotistical narcissist, DT will want to proclaim victories even if illusory. so we will go through that charade.

why i remain cautiously optimistic in that Trump is not a socialist wanting to destroy capitalism, and we will have to see if the kooky ideas get jettisoned or watered down--thats my base case

The difference with 2008 etc, is that they were massive, entrenched structural issues, that simply is not the case here, not yet anyway.

I wouldn’t count on it!

Claude Walker & Patrick Poke discuss: 'What To Do Post-Panic Day'

Claude also discusses ABV which issued a positive update yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ue-UiSrFjQ&ab_channel=ARichLife

@Solvetheriddle I think you are right about the bond market. Howard Lutnick will have whispered in Trump’s ear … “uh-oh … that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Im listening to a UK podcast at the moment and they are calling this “Donald Trump’s Liz Truss Moment”.

Anyone for a lettuce sweepstake?

Second sweepstake idea … how many days or weeks until Trump blames Navarro.

After all, Elon has already stepped away.

love it

I reckon you could argue the Arse Clown's backdown overnight is fundamentally bad for Australia. The big positive, obviously, is that hopefully it gives a few months of certainty and reduces the risk of a global recession. But there are two major negatives:

• a 10% across the board tariff eliminates the relative benefit our exporters had over places like the EU. I think this is a lessor impact than the next point but it will have a effect at the margin.
• the bigger impact is that he is raising the tariff on China to 125%. If that persists it's inconceivable that won't have a devastating effect on the Chinese economy. Just a reminder - China represents somewhere between a quarter and a third of all our exports (per ChatGPT). Maybe, even probably, it increases the chances of Chinese government stimulus.

It does seem like there is a deliberate and inexorable effort to decouple the US from China. Claude Walker highlighted the risk that if this is the case, the US might put pressure on allies, like Australia, to do the same. I hadn't been thinking about this but it does make sense.

The announcement by Laserbond this morning to pause their entry into the US is almost the perfect micro-exemplar of the problem these meat puppets have created. One of the (largely contradictory) justifications for these tariffs is that it will drive investment, including manufacturing, into the US. In Laserbond you have a company that was actively looking to invest into the US, predating the tariff announcements and even predating the US election. With the deliberate uncertainty the window lickers are sowing Laserbond did the only responsible thing they could in the circumstances and pause that investment. What chance does the US have in attracting investment that hadn't been planned to been planned to go to the US?

Great points @Noddy74.

Of course, by the same logic, if huge Chinese tariffs on US imports stick, then Australian imports to China are advantaged. Categories include coal, LNG, agricultural produce, wine, copper and other mined products, some pharmaceuticals and even a small amount of high-tech manufactured products (e.g. in the mining secor).

I wonder how Trump will feel when he realises that "allies" are stepping in to fill the void created by reduced US imports to China. He might not think that's very "fair". ("It's a horrible thing our friends are doing, just horrible ... boo hoo hoo.")

Somehow, I imagine he's going to look for some kind of off-ramp even with China ... one where he doesn't lose face completely.

Looks like he is giving more sway to Bessent, who spent the whole weekend fielding calls from his Wall St mates. (Which, implies Navarro's influence is waning.)

What are the odds on Donald pre-warning the Big 7 (as a peace offering) of his tariff pause?

There's no doubt he would use such an insider strategy for gain, assuming no one would be the wiser.

Follow the early money today, I reckon there will be some discrepancies.

The Laserbond example perfectly highlights the point I was making yesterday @Noddy74 :

Add to that a big backwards step in one of the most important considerations for business investment: clarity, certainty, stability. Arbitrary and politically motivated changes to trade rules undermine planning horizons and tilt incentives toward short-termism over long-term investment.

And we should all be concerned about what a (further) deterioration in the Chinese economy means for us in Australia. They were already on an unsustainable path (aggregate debt to GDP is now over 300%), but a trade war with its biggest export market is certainly something that could catalyze things. Luckily we made hay while the sun was shining, and didnt just ape all our good fortune into a speculative property frenzy ;)

The more I think about it, the more I think the bond market is the key thing to watch. It's what ultimately sets the global cost of capital, and with rising concerns over growth and inflation (let alone the credit worthiness of the US itself), it's hard to envisage a scenario where yields drop -- at least absent any intervention. And even then, you have to ask what such intervention would look like, and what it would mean.

I think we are a long way away from any sustainable, broad-based, fundamentals driven economic growth. Fortunately, pockets of value can always be found (even if its harder to spot).

@lowway He tweeted "Now is a great time to buy" not long before he announced the tariff pause. I think it's a safe bet that if you were in the know you were pre-warned. Anyone following his tweets probably could be considered pre-warned too. I wish I'd been awake when he tweeted rather than sound asleep, haha.

Great point @tomsmithidg. I'm sure lots of people knew Trump was about to U turn on the tarrifs. At least the 700 or so dancing at the Mar-A-Lago party in December. Stay close to your elite base. Maybe now is a good time to join Truth Social?

AFR: When Donald Trump offered some financial advice on Wednesday morning (Thursday AEST), stocks were wavering between gains and losses. But that was about to change.

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 9.37am local time.

Donald Trump’s White House pushed back on the idea that Trump improperly manipulated the markets. AP

Less than four hours later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks soared on the news, closing up 9.5 per cent by the end of trading. The market, measured by the S&P 500, gained back about $US4 trillion ($6.5 trillion), or 70 per cent, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days.

It was a prescient call by the president. Maybe too prescient.

“He’s loving this, this control over markets, but he better be careful,” said Trump critic and former White House ethics lawyer, Richard Painter, noting that securities law prohibits trading on insider information or helping others do so.

“The people who bought when they saw that post made a lot of money.”

Democrats accused Trump of “market manipulation,” and the term is trending on the social media platform X, with more than 33,000 posts.

Wow, I want aware it was that blatantly known @tomsmithidg & @actionman

The problem is that, even if he manipulated the market in the pursuit of his presidential duties, then by the 2024 Supreme Court ruling, he is immune from prosecution.

Of course, if goes to far, might he get himself impeached?

Depressingly I think he could walk into the White House press room with a AR15, fire off a full magazine and Congress still wouldn't impeach him. Fox News would likely applaud his use of a US-made rifle.

There are no longer branches of government, there's merely parties. One is a feckless insignificant husk without any clue what it represents and the other is in the back pocket of the president.

@Strawman yes it does seem the bond market was the real catalyst for the backdown. Marcus Padley wrote a bit about that here. At the end of the day the bond market stubbornly refuses to be anyone's bitch! It will definitely be worth keeping an eye on it going forwards.

I really have no theories on what's going on - it does seem to be random policy - my only suggestion is not to forget Hanlon or Occam and their razors....@Strawman you can probably elaborate better on those than me....