April 1st 2025
I can't think of a written prank for today. The world is much too fucked up for me to do
this.
At the moment, I am hoping Trump will cave in and issue
tariffs of one to five percent tomorrow.
I am amazed at how hope rises within me even when there is no reason to
have any hop, at all.
I am feeling hopeful from my gut, but my brain knows things
are bad. This ongoing cognitive dissonance
will kill my soul over time. I am not sure how others are doing with this
though I suspect a lot of people are just going about their day to day lives
trying not to think of the coming depression.
Trump is an evil man and clearly wants to introduce the
tariffs to cause maximum pain for Americans and destroy the global system of
rules related to commerce. I know some
of you are thinking “Maybe Trump thinks his approach is a good idea.” No he does not. Every one that knows anything about business
has pointed out to Trump that this is a really bad idea. There are no voices in his ear that have any
argument for the tariffs. Trump is doing
this knowing he is going to cause the worst economic disaster in the US since
the early 1930s.
So why is he doing it?
First, he hates the world.
Second, he hates democracy.
Third, he has an abiding and total hatred of American people. Four, he wants to use it to annex Canada. Fifth,
Trump is pushing the Republicans to back policies that are anti-Reagan and
thereby show their loyalty to Trump.
Trump has no good reasons for the tariffs. He is happily bringing about global chaos.
I have to remember these things because rationality keeps
rearing its head. No rational actor would
do this.
I have completely ignored all the DOGE stuff because I do
not know what the outcome will be of that.
They are not going to be able to fire close to enough people to have any
significant impact on the budget. The
only part of the budget the US could actually save some money would be the
military. All I will say about DOGE is
that it is being run with the height of incompetence. DOGE is costing more money than the US needs
to spend to reduce the size of government.
Since I am at DOGE lets go to Tesla. The stock price of Tesla was about $275
today. This is down from the peak but
much higher than what the company is actually worth. If one applies the same economic logic for investing
in a manufacturer you would want to see a price earnings ratio of around
10. Right now it is 130. Tesla stock is wildly overvalued.
What is a realistic stock price? About $21, this is a 92% drop in value of the
stock. I would argue that given the way
Tesla’s stock of cars is becoming the oldest one on the market. Their one new vehicle, the Cybertruck, has
been complete failure. A more realistic stock price is ,ore like $10 a share. This is a 96.4% drop in the stock price. This
is assuming the company does not go bankrupt and that is now a real
possibility.
Today is the day before the storm of the tariffs. What I will be looking for:
•
Tariffs on Canada and Mexico – will they be much
lower than 25%?
•
Scale of tariffs on the democracies and the
tariff rate. 20% has been out there as a
number
•
Scale of tariffs on the dictatorships – will he favour
the autocrats?
•
How will he justify the tariffs? In the case of Canada the trade between the
two countries is actually skewed in favour of the Americans. The only real trade issue is the continuation
of supply management in Canada for some areas of agriculture.
•
Will there be Republican leadersjip in the US
that will stand up and oppose these tariffs?
I think this is enough for today.
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