Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

I just has a snoop on Twitter (Feck off Elon, it'll always be Twitter to me) - only to see it full of MAGA's giving high fives over market gains with "This is what I voted for" and "#winning"

They're hilarious!

So they all voted for a guy who since the high of February, wiped out almost $17 Trillion of value, regained $7.25 trillion, giving an overall loss of $9.75 trillion - and it's high fives and winning!

MAGA are pathetic!

The bond sell-off has started already, and the threats to China remain. I don't really know what the US are expecting in terms of that; by promising (yet still using) lesser tariffs for other countries.

It's like being told that your abusive partner will only beat you half as much if you comply, and don't speak with any other beaten parties

Trump did cave and it's great to see him being put in his place.

You can't demand immediate bond payment without repercussions for your investment. If China decides to sell all their bonds before maturity, the only option is to sell on the open market. What happens when there's an oversupply and not enough buyers? Prices drops. Their $800 billion worth of bonds could turn into $700-600 billion.

The yuan would weaken and cause inflation to rise. Unemployment would soar, and the weakened USD and high US bond yield would cause Chinas other investments to fall in value because most of it is dollar denominated.

China have started paring back US bonds holdings but nowhere near hundreds of billions(yet). They're probably doing this for two reasons;

1. Spook the markets, fire a warning shot, and cause US bond yield to to rise, indicating weaker investor confidence in the USD lower confidence means it's more expensive for them to refinance their debt which could lead to US default.

2. They need to inject cash into their economy in an attempt to offset some of the pain of US tariffs without devaluing the yuan.

In saying all that; the US can not win this economic war with China.

Am I the only one reading that in the voice of The Borg?

I just wanna see them suffer enough so that it hurts so much that a MAGA type movement is guaranteed not to continue - or occur again in this lifetime!

People do seem to need to be reminded of the simple lessons of history time and time again. Until they see it in their bank balance and can't lie to themselves about the cause, I don't think they'll be inoculated against another Trump for another generation or two.

The item to note here is that this message went out and China did it anyway. They thumbed their nose at the prospect of a reward and belittled the US while doing so. This leaves MAGA in a very sticky situation of needing to but not being able to climb down.

So been watchin all this last few days and heard mutterings that in the white house, gop circles, trumps own interests etc that there has been insider trading and market manipulation going on. Imagine if this is proved

Fox News (of all places) have an interesting claim on who was dumping Treasury Bonds and they're saying it WASN'T the Chinese.....

Imagine if its proved..........what?

What if it is proved. Who cares. Nobody is going to do anything about it.

For starters, there is nobody really left independent of Trump's crony influence and even if there were, they'll only get as far as whatever MAGA dominated Court shuts it down.

As many of you probably know, it is the job of the US Securities and Exchange Commission to police just that sort of thing, yet they are a politicised organisation and have absolutely failed when they were needed in recent times, notably in 2008.

And to top it off, the SEC got a new boss only one hour ago! Fella named Paul Atkins. Worth noting that he worked at the Commission before, but has spent the last decade as, what? A Wall Street Consultant!

Here's what Bloomberg make of him:

Atkins, approved Wednesday in a 52-44 vote, is expected to scale back regulation, reduce corporate disclosures and make SEC rules friendlier toward cryptocurrency companies, which battled in court with predecessor Gary Gensler. The new chair will also need to monitor the volatility triggered by the trade levies.

So, as you can see, it would be more than naive to expect any consequences for any white collar offences, by anyone other than registered Democrats, for the duration of this ****-show.

Never explain with a conspiracy theory that which can be adequately explained without one.

Trump has always been quite shameless in his greed and corruption and, I agree, wouldn't hesitate to manipulate the markets and/or abuse the powers of his office to make private profit for himself.

But I'm not convinced that that's what happened here — that Trump announced the tariffs in order to crash the markets, intending all along to reverse his position and profit from the market rebound. He U-turned because he had to. Having decided to U-turn he may have sought to profit from the associated market movements — I don't know that he did, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least. But I don't think that was the plan all along. He really does think the tariffs are a crash-hot idea, and he will be chagrined at having to change course.

Lock her up

Lock her up.

He has immunity for anything he does in his presendential role. His supreme Court buddies agreed to that.

China bites back

A quick look on Twitter seems to suggest they supply a lot of US Defense contractors/manufacturers, particularly related to the likes of drones.